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X LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

I J " __^ ■ — 

; <'liiip.- -/iCopvri^^lit No. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



(^))Z jaiberjSibe 'iJBiooraptJital ;^criejS 



ANDREW JACKSON, by W. G. Brown 
JAMES B. EADS, by Louis How 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, by Paul E. Mork 
PETER COOPER, by R. W. Raymond 
THOMAS JEFFERSON, by H. C. Merwin 

IN PREPARA TION 
WILLIAM PENN GENERAL GRANT 

LEWIS AND CLARKE 
Each about roo pages, i6mo, with photogra- 
vure portrait, 75 cents, 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
Boston and New York 



NUMBER 3 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

BY 

PAUL ELMER MORE 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 



BY 



/ 

PAUL ELMER MORE 




HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

Boston: 4 Park Street; New York: 11 East Seventeentb Street 
Chicago: 378-388 Wabash Avenue 

(arte ttitJerjStOe ^tt^0, Cambritiae 



793':'0 



Library of Congress 

Two Copies Received 
NOV 24 1900 

Copyright entry 

SECOND COPY 

0«4ivorod to 

ORO£fi OtVtSION 

DEC 10 1900 






COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY PAUL E. MORE 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

I. Early Days in Boston .... 1 
II. Beginnings in Philadelphia and Fiest 

Voyage to England .... 22 

III. Eeligious Beliefs. — The Junto . . 37 

IV. The Scientist and Public Citizen in Phil- 

adelphia 52 

V. FiKST and Second Missions to England . 85 

VI. Membeh of Congress — Envoy to France 109 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 



EAELY DAYS IN BOSTON 

When the report of Franklin's death 
reached Paris,yne received, among other 
marks of respect,/this significant honor by 
one of the revolutionary clubs : in the cafe 
where the members met, his bust was crowned 
with oak-leaves, and on the pedestal below 
was engraved the single word vir. This 
simple encomium, calling to mind Napoleon's 
This is a man after meeting Goethe^ sums 
up better than a volume of eulogy) what 
Franklin was in his own day and what his 
life may still signify to us. He acted at one 
time as a commander of troops, yet cannot 
be called a soldier ; he was a great states- 
man, yet not among the greatest ; he made 
famous discoveries in science, yet was scarcely 



2 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

a professional scientist ; he was lauded as a 
philosopher, yet barely outstepped the region 
of common sense ; he wrote ever as a moral- 
ist, yet in some respects lived a free life ; 
he is one of the few great American authors, 
yet never published a book ; he was a shrewd 
economist, yet left at his death only a mod- 
erate fortune ; he accomplished much as a 
philanthropist, yet never sacrificed his own 
weal. Above all and in all things he was a 
man, able to cope with every chance of life 
and wring profit out of it ; he had perhaps 
the alertest mind of any man of that alert 
century. In his shrewdness, versatility, self- 
reliance, wit, as also in his lack of the deeper 
reverence and imagination, he, I think, more 
than any other man who has yet lived, repre- 
sents the full American character, p^nd so 
in studying his life< though at times we may 
wish that to his practical intelligence were 
added the fervid insight of Jonathan Ed- 
wards, who was his only intellectual equal 
in the colonies, or the serene faith of an 
Emerson, who was born " within a kite 
string's distance " of his birthplace in Bos- 



EARLY DAYS IN BOSTON 3 

ton, yet in the end we are borne away by 
the wonderful openness and rectitude of liis 
mind, and are willing to grant him his high 
representative position. 

/franklin's ancestors were of__the sturdy 
sort that have made the strength of the 
Anglo-Saxon race. For three hundred years 
at least his family had lived on a freehold of 
thirty acres in the village of Ecton, North- 
amptonshire ; and for many generations 
father and son had been smiths. Parton, 
in his capital Life of Franklin, has observed 
that Washington's ancestors lived in the 
same county, although much liigher in the 
social scale ; and it may well have been that 
more than one of Franklin's ancestors " tight- 
ened a rivet in the armor or replaced a shoe 
upon the horse of a Washington, or doffed 
his cap to a Washington riding past the an- 
cestral forge. "^T)uring these long years-the 
family seems to have gathered strength from 
the soil, as families are wont to do. Seeing 
how the rranklins//when the fit of emigrat- 
ing seized upon them/ blossomed out mo- 
mentarily, and then dwindled away, we are 



4 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

reminded of Poor Eicliard's wise observa- 
tion, — 

" I never saw an oft-removed tree 
Nor yet an oft-removed family 
That throve so well as those that settled be." 

About the year 1685, Josiah Franklin, 
the youngest of four sons, came with his 
wife and three children to Boston. He had 
been a dyer in the old home, but now in 
New England, finding little to be done in 
this line, he set up as a tallow-chandler and 
soap-boiler, and prospered in a small way. 
By his first wife he had four more children, 
and then by a second wife ten others, — a 
goodly sheaf of seventeen, among whom Ben- 
jamin, the destined philosopher, was the 
fifteenth. 

The second wife, Benjamin's mother, was 
the daughter of Peter Folger, one of the set- 
tlers of Nantucket, — "a godly and learned 
Englishman," who, like many of the pious 
New England folk, used to relieve his heart 
in doggerel rhymes. In his " Looking-Glass 
for the Times " he appeals boldly for liberty 
of conscience in behalf of the persecuted 



EAPtLY DAYS IN BOSTON 5 

Anabaptists and Quakers, and we are not 
surprised that Franklin should have com- 
mended the manly freedom of these crude 
verses. Young Benjamin was open to every 
influence about himy and something of the 
large and immovable tolerance of his nature 
may have been caught from old Peter Fol- 
ger, his grandfather. • We can imagine with 
what relish that sturdy Protestant, if he had 
lived so long, would have received Be»ja- 
min's famous " Parable against Persecution," 
which the author used to pretend to read as 
the last chapter of Genesis, to the great 
mystification of his audience, — " And it 
came to pass after these things that Abra- 
ham sat in the door of his tent," etc. Try 
the trick to-day, and you wiU find most of 
your hearers equally mystified, so perfectly 
has Franklin imitated the tone of Old Testa- 
ment language. 

But we forget that our hero, like Tristram 
Shandy, is still in the limbo of non-existence. 
Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, Jan- 
uary 6 (old style), 1706. At that time the 
family home was in Milk Street, opposite 



6 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

the Old South Church, to which sacred edi- 
fice the child was taken the day of his birth, 
tradition asserting that his own mother car- 
ried him thither through the snow. Shortly 
afterwards the family moved to a wooden 
house on the corner of Hanover and Union 
streets. 

Naturally in so large a family, where the 
means of support were so slender, young 
Benjamin had to get most of his education 
outside of the schoolroom, and something 
of this practical unscholastic training clung 
to his mind always. Perhaps this was just 
as well in that age and place, where theo- 
logy and education were synonymous terms; 
Certainly his consequent lack of deep root 
in the past and his impressionability, though 
limitations to his genius, make him the more 
typical of American intelligence. At the 
age of eight he was sent to the grammar 
school, where he remained less than a year, 
and then passed under the charge of Mr. 
George Brownell, a teacher of the three R's. 
Benjamin had learned to read so young that 
he himself could not remember being unable 



EARLY DAYS IN BOSTON 7 

to read, and at school he did notably well. 
It is curious, however, that he found diffi- 
culty with his arithmetic, and was never a 
mathematician, though later in life he be- 
came skillful in dealing with figures. No 
error could be greater than Carlyle's state- 
ment that ability in mathematics is a test of 
intelligence. Goethe, scientist as well as 
poet, could never learn algebra ; and Fara- 
day, the creator of electrical science, knew 
no mathematics at all. ^^ 

When ten years old the lad was taken 
from school and set to work under his father. 
But his education was by no means ended. 
There is a temptation to dwell on these 
early formative years because he himself was 
so fond of deducing lessons from the little 
occurrences of his boyhood ; nor do I know 
any life that shows a more consistent develop- 
ment from beginning to end. There is, too, 
a peculiar charm in hearing the world-famous 
philosopher discourse on these petty happen- 
ings of childhood and draw from them his 
wise experience of life. So, for instance, at 
sixty-six years of age he writes to a friend 



8 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

in Paris the story of " The Whistle." One 
day when he was seven years old his pocket 
was filled with coppers, and he immediately 
started for the shop to buy toys. On the 
way he met a boy with a whistle, and was so 
charmed with the sound of it that he gave 
all his money for one. Of course his kind 
brothers and sisters laughed at him for his 
extravagant bargain, and his chagrin was so 
great that he adopted as one of his maxims 
of life, " Don't give tog much for the whis- 
tle." As he grew up, came into the world, 
and observed the actions of men, he thought 
he met with many, very many, who gave 
too much for the whistle, — men sacrificing 
I/' time and liberty and virtue for court favor ; 
misers, giving up comfort and esteem and 
the joy of doing good for wealth ; others 
sacrificing every laudable improvement of the 
mind and fortune and health to mere cor- 
poral sensations, and all the other follies of 
exorbitant desire. 

Another experience, this time a more pain- 
ful lesson in honesty, he relates in his Auto- 
biography. Having one day stolen some 



EARLY DAYS IN BOSTON 9 

stones from an unfinished house while the 
builders were away, he and his comrades built 
up a wharf where they might stand and fish 
for minnows in the mill-pond. They were 
discovered, complained of, and corrected by 
their fathers ; " and though I demonstrated 
the utility of our work," says Franklin, 
" mine convinced me that that which was 
not honest could not be truly useful." 

It is interesting, too, to see the boy show- 
ing the same experimental aptitude which 
brought scientific renown to the man. Like 
all American boys living on the coast, he 
was strongly attracted to the water, and 
early learned to swim. But ordinary swim- 
ming was not enough for Benjamin : with 
some skill he made a pair of wooden paddles 
for his hands, which enabled him to move 
through the water very rapidly, although, as 
he says, they tired his wrists. Another time 
he combined the two joyful pursuits of swim- 
ming and kite-flying in such a manner perhaps 
as no boy before him had ever conceived. 
Lying on his back, he held in his hands the 
stick to which the kite-string was attached, 



10 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

and thus " was drawn along the surface of 
the water in a very agreeable manner." 
Later in life he said he thought it not im- 
possible to cross in this manner from Dover 
to Calais. " But the packet-boat is still 
preferable," he added. We shall see how 
he managed to put even his knowledge of 
swimming to practical use ; and kite-flying, 
every one knows, served him in his most 
notable electrical experiment. Certainly, if 
it could ever be said of any one, it might 
be said of him, " The child is father of the 




)ut swimming and boyish play formed a 
small, though it may be important, part of 
his education. He was from childhood up 
" passionately fond of reading," and he was 
moreover a wise reader, which is still bet- 
ter. Books were not so easy to get in those 
days ; and the good libraries of the comitry 
were composed chiefly of great theological 
volumes in folio on the shelves of the clergy- 
men's studies. But in one way and another 
Franklin contrived to lay hands on the food 
he most needed. All the money he could 



EARLY DAYS IN BOSTON 11 

save he devoted to buying books, and he 
even had recourse to unusual methods of 
saving for this purpose. When sixteen he 
chanced to read a treatise commending a 
vegetable diet, and forthwith he put himself 
under this regimen, finding he could thus ■ 
set aside half his board money to increase , ^^ 
his library. He also made the acquaintance 
of the booksellers' apprentices from whom he 
could borrow books ; and often he would read 
late into the night so as to return the pur- 
loined volume early the next morning. 

The first book he owned was the " Pil- 
grim's Progress," which remained a favorite 
with him through life and even served to a 
certain extent as a model for his own work. 
This book he sold to buy Burton's "His- 
torical Collections " in forty volumes. His 
father's library w^as mainly theological, and 
the young lad was courageous enough to 
brows e even in this dry pasture, but to his 
little profit as he thought. ^There was, how- 
ever, a book on his father's shelves which 
was admirably suited to train one destined 
himself to play a large part in a great drama 



12 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

of history. Where could patriotism and 
fortitude of character better be learnt than 
in Plutarch ? and Plutarch he read " abun- 
dantly" and thought his "time spent to^ 
great advantage." That was in the good 
days before children's books and boys' books 
were printed. In place of — whom shall we 
say, Henty or Abbott or another ? — boys, if 
they read at all, read Plutarch and the 
" Spectator." They came to the intellectual 
tasks of manhood with their minds braced 
by manly reading and not deboshed by silly 
or at best juvenile literature, f^t is safe to 
say that no book written primarily for a 
boy is a good book for a boy to read.'/^Apart 
from lessons in generous hving, Franklin 
may have had his natural tendency to moral- 
ize strengthened by this study of Plutarch, 
/lit is indeed notable that in one respect eigh- 
teenth-century literature has marked affinity 
with the Greek. The writers of that age, 
and among them Franklin, were like the 
Greeks distinctly ethical. In telling a story 
or recording a life, their interest was in the 
moral to be drawn, rather than in the pas- 
sions involved. 



EARLY DAYS IN BOSTON 13 

Another book which had a special in- 
fluence on his style may be mentioned. An 
odd volume of the " Spectator " coming into 
his hands, he read the essays over and over 
and took them deliberately as a model in 
language. This was before the date of John- 
son's well-known dictum : " Whoever wishes 
to attain an English style, familiar but not 
coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, 
must give his days and nights to the volumes 
of Addison." His method of work was 
" to make short hints of the sentiments in 
each sentence," lay these by for a few days, 
and then having reconstructed the essay 
from his notes to compare his version with the 
original. Sometimes he jumbled the collec- 
tion of hints into confusion and thus made 
a study of construction as well as of style ; 
or again he turned an essay into verse and 
after a while converted it back into prose. 
And this we believe to be the true method 
of acquiring a good style, more efficacious 
than any English course in Harvard Col- 
lege. 

At sixteen he was reading Locke " On 



14 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

Human Understanding," — very strong 
meat for a boy — and tlie Port Royal " Art 
of Thinking." From Xenoplion's " Memo- 
rable Tilings of Socrates " he acquired a les- 
son which he never forgot and which he 
always esteemed of importance in his educa- 
tion. This was the skillful assumption of 
ignorance or uncertainty in dispute, the so- 
called " irony " of Socrates. At first he em- 
ployed this ironical method to trap his 
opponents into making unwary statements 
that led to their confusion ; and in this way 
he grew expert in obtaining victories that, 
as he said, neither he nor his cause deserved. 
Accordingly he afterwards gave up this form 
of sophistry and only retained the habit of 
expressing himself in terms of modest diffi- 
dence, always saying: He conceived or im- 
agined such a thing to be so, and never 
using the words certainly^ undoubtedly^ and 
the like. 

Books, however, occupied but a small part 
of his life at this time. After leaving school 
he was first made to assist his father in the 
tallow-chandler business : but his distaste for 



EARLY DAYS IN BOSTON 15 

this trade was so great tliat his father, fear- 
ing the boy would run away to sea, began to 
look about for other employment for him. 
He took the lad to see " joiners, brick-layers, 
turners, braziers, etc., at their work," in order 
to discover where the boy's inclination lay. 
And this event of his boyhood he as an old 
man remembered, saying, that it had ever 
since been a pleasure to him to see good work- 
men handle their tools, and adding that it was 
useful to him in his business and science to 
have learned so much in the way of handi- 
craft. At length Benjamin's love of books 
determined his occupation, and like many 
another famous author he was set to the 
printing-press.-4. In 1717 his brother James 
had come back from England with a press 
and letters, and at the age of twelve Benja- 
min was bound to his brother as an appren- 
tice. 

James soon discovered Benjamin's clever- 
ness with the pen and induced him to com- 
pose two ballads, "The Light-House Tra- 
gedy," being the story of a recent shipwreck, 
and " Blackbeard," a sailor's song on the 



16 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

capture of that notorious pirate. These 
ballads, which the author frankly, and no 
doubt truthfully, describes as "wretched 
stuJBf," were printed and hawked about the 
streets by the boy. " The Light-House Trar 
gedy" at least sold prodigiously, and the 
boy's vanity was correspondingly flattered ; 
but the father stepped in and discouraged 
such work, warning Benjamin that " verse- 
makers were generally beggars." So, per- 
haps, we were spared a mediocre poet and 
given a first-rate prose writer, for the stuff 
of poetry was not in Franklin's sober brain. 
At this time the good people of Massachu- 
setts were dependent for the news of the 
world on a single paper, the " Boston News- 
Letter," afterwards called the " Gazette " 
(and indeed there was no other paper in the 
whole country), published, as was commonly 
the case in those days, by the postmaster of 
the town. But in 1721 James Franklin, 
much against the advice of his friends, 
started a rival paper, the " New England 
Courant," which the young apprentice had 
to carry about to subscribers after helping it 



EARLY DAYS IN BOSTON 17 

through the press. Benjamin, however, soon 
played a more important part than printer's 
devil. Several ingenious men were in the 
habit of writing little Addisonian essays for 
the paper, and Benjamin, hearing their con- 
versation, was fired to try his own skill. 
" But being still a boy," — so he tells the 
story himself, — " and suspecting that my 
brother would object to printing anything 
of mine in his paper if he knew it to be 
mine, I contrived to disguise my hand, and 
writing an anonymous paper, I put it at 
night under the door of the printing-house. 
It was found in the morning and communi- 
cated to his writing friends when they called 
in as usual. They read it, commented on it 
in my hearing, and I had the exquisite plea- 
sure of finding it met with their approbation, 
and that in their different guesses at the 
author none were named but men of some 
character among us for learning and inge- 
nuity." Naturally the lad was flattered by 
the success of his ruse ; and he continued to 
send in his anonymous essays for more than 
a year. They have been pretty conclusively 



18 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

identified as the series of articles signed 
" Silence Dogood," and are a clever enough 
imitation of the " Spectator's " style of alle- 
gory and humorous satire, such as Franldin 
was fond of using all his life. The signature, 
too. Silence Dogood, was characteristic of 
the man who turned all religion into a code 
of morality, and was famous for his power 
of keeping a secret. Like the ancient poet 
Simonides, he knew the truth of the saying, 
Silence hatli a safe reward. 

Those days were not easy times for print- 
ers, nor was the freedom of the press any 
more respected than liberty of conscience. 
Trouble very soon arose between the new 
paper and the authorities chiefly on account 
of the " Cour ant's " free handling of the 
church. Already the free-thinking party 
which afterwards formed into the Unitarian 
church was showing its head, and the writers 
for the " Courant " were among the most 
outspoken. The climax was reached when 
one day the paper appeared with a diatribe 
containing such words as these : " For my 
own part, when I find a man full of religious 



EAULY DAYS IN BOSTON 19 

cant and palaver, I presently suspect Mm to 
be a knave," — a sentiment which the reli- 
gious authorities very properly took as an 
insult to themselves. James was arrested 
and imprisoned for a month, and on his re- 
lease was forbidden to print the " Courant." 
To escape this difficulty the old indenture of 
Benjamin was canceled and the paper was 
printed in his name ; at the same time, how- 
ever, a new indenture was secretly made so 
that James might still, if he desired, claim 
his legal rights in the apprentice. It was a 
" flimsy scheme," and held but a little while. 
Bickerings had been constant between the 
two brothers, and Benjamin was especially 
resentful for the blows his master's passion 
too often urged him to bestow. 

" My mind now is set, 
My heart's thouglit, on wide waters," — 

said the youth in the old Anglo-Saxon jDoem, 
and this same sea-loiiging was bred in the 
bones of our Boston apprentice. Now at 
length the boy would break away ; at least 
he would voyage to another home, though he 
might give up the notion of becoming a 



20 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

sailor. He intimates, moreover, that the 
narrow bigotry of New England in religion 
was distasteful to him — as we may well be- 
lieve it was. Yet he always retained an 
affectionate memory of the place of his birth ; 
and only two years before his death he wrote 
pleasantly regarding the citizens of that 
town, " for besides their general good sense, 
which I value, the Boston manner, turn of 
phrase, and even tone of voice and accent in 
pronunciation, all please and seem to refresh 
and revive me." The newspapers of those 
days were full of advertisements for runaway 
apprentices, and Benjamin was one to get 
his freedom in the same way. He sold his 
books for a little cash, took secret passage 
in a sloop for New York, and in three days 
(some time in October, 1723) found himself 
in that strange city " without the least re- 
commendation or knowledge of anybody in 
the place." The voyage had been unevent- 
ful save for an incident which happened 
while they were becalmed off Block Island. 
The crew here employed themselves in catch- 
ing cod, and to Franklin, at this time a 



EAPtLY DAYS IN BOSTON 21 

devout vegetarian, the taking of every fisli 
seemed a kind of unprovoked murder, since 
none of them had done or could do their 
catchers any injury. But he had been for- 
merly a great lover of fish, and the smell 
of the frying-pan was most tempting. He 
balanced some time between princi23le and 
inclination, till, recollecting that when the 
fish were opened he had seen smaller fish 
taken out of their stomachs, he bethought 
himself : " If you eat one another I don't 
see why we may not eat you ; " so he dined 
upon cod very heartily, and continued through 
life, except at rare intervals, to eat as other 
people. " So convenient a tiling it is," he 
adds, " to be a reasonable creature, since it 
enables one to find or make a reason for 
everything one has a mind to do." 



II 



BEGINNINGS IN PHILADELPHIA AND FIRST 
VOYAGE TO ENGLAND 

The only printer then in New York was 
old William Bradford, formerly of Phila- 
delphia, whose monmiient may still be seen 
in Trinity Churchyard. To Mr. William 
Bradford accordingly young Franklin ap- 
plied for work ; but there was little printing 
done in the town and Bradford had no need 
of another hand at the press. He told 
Franklin, however, that liis son at Philadel- 
phia had lately lost his principal assistant by 
death, and advised Franklin to go thither. 

Without delay Franklin set out for that 
place, and after a somewhat adventurous 
journey arrived at the Market Street wharf 
about eight or nine o'clock of a Sunday 
morning. 

Philadelphia at that time was a comfort- 
able town of some ten thousand inhabitants, 



BEGINNINGS IN PHILADELPHIA 23 

extending a mile or more along tlie Delaware 

and reaching only a few blocks back into the 

country. It was a shady easy-going place, 

with pleasant gardens about the houses, and 

something of Quaker repose and substantial 

thrift lent a charm to its busy life. Men 

were still living who could remember when 

unbroken forests held the place of Penn's 
city : — 

' ' And the streets still reecho the names of the trees of 

the forest, 
As if they fain would appease the Dryads whose haunts 

they molested." 

Franklin was fond of contrasting his hum- 
ble entrance into his adopted home with the 
honorable station he afterwards acquired 
there. He was, as he says, in his working 
dress, his best clothes coming round by sea. 
He was dirty from being so long in the 
boat. His pockets were stuffed out with 
shirts and stockings, and he knew no one nor 
where to look for lodging. Fatigued with 
walking, rowing, and the want of sleep, he 
was very hungry ; and his whole stock of cash 
consisted in a single dollar and about a shil- 



24 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

ling in copper coin, wJbich he gave to the boat- 
men for his passage. At first they refused 
it on account of his having rowed, but he in- 
sisted on their taking it. " Man is some- 
times," he adds, " more generous when he 
has little money than when he has plenty ; 
perhaps to prevent his being thought to have 
but little." 

It was indeed a strange entrance for the 
future statesman and scientist. As he walked 
up to Market Street he met a boy with 
bread, which reminded him forcibly of his 
hunger, and asking the boy where he had 
got his loaf he went straight to the same 
baker's. Here, after some difficulty due to 
difference of names in Boston and Philadel- 
phia, he provided himself with three " great 
puffy rolls " for threepence, and with these 
he started up Market Street, eating one and 
carrying one under each arm, as his pockets 
were already full. On the way he passed the 
door of Mr. Read's house, where his future 
wife saw him and thought he made an awk- 
ward, ridiculous appearance. At Fourth 
Street he turned across to Chestnut and 



BEGINNINGS IN PHILADELPHIA 25 

walked down Chestnut and Walnut, munch- 
ing his roll all the way. Coming again to 
the river he took a drink of water, gave away 
the two remaining rolls to a poor woman, 
and started up Market Street again. He 
found a number of clean-dressed people all 
going in one direction, and by following them 
was led into the great meeting-house of the 
Quakers. There he sat down and looked, 
about him. It was apparently a silent meet- 
ing, for not a word was spoken, and the boy, 
being now utterly exhausted, fell into a sleep 
from which he was roused only at the close 
of the service. 

That night he lodged at the Crooked 
Billet, which despite its ominous name seems 
to have been a comfortable inn, and the next 
morning, having dressed as neatly as he 
could, set out to find employment. Andrew 
Bradford had no place for him ; but another 
printer named Keimer, who had recently set 
up in business, was willing to give him 
work. It was a queer house and a queer 
printer. There was an old damaged press, 
on which Franklin exercised his^kill in re- 



26 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

pairing, and a small worn-out font of t3rpe. 
Keimer himself, who seems to have been a 
grotesque compound of knave and crank, 
was engaged at once in composmg and set- 
ting up in type an elegy on the death of a 
prominent young man. He is the only poet 
to my knowledge who ever used the composi- 
tion-stick instead of a pen for the vehicle of 
inspiration. The elegy may still be read in 
Duyckinck's Cyclopaedia, and on perusing it 
we may well repeat the first line : — 

" What mournful accents thus accost mine ear ! " 

Now began a period of growing prosperity 
for our philosopher. The two printers of 
Philadelphia were poorly qualified for their 
business, and Franklin by his industry and 
intelligence soon rendered himself indispen- 
sable to Keimer. He was making money, 
had discovered a few agreeable persons to 
pass his evenings with, and was contented. 
He took lodging with Mr. Read, and now, as 
he says, " made rather a more respectable 
appearance in the eyes of Miss Read." 

Pie was even in a fair way to forget Boston 
when an incident occurred of some importance 



BEGINNINGS IN PHILADELPHIA 27 

in his life. Robert Holmes, wlio had mar- 
ried his sister, being at Newcastle, forty miles 
below Philadelphia, heard of him and wrote 
entreating him to return home. To this ap- 
peal Franklin replied giving his reasons for 
leaving Boston. Now Sir William Keith, 
governor of Pennsylvania, chanced at this 
time to be at Newcastle, and, being shown 
the letter by Holmes, was so much impressed 
with it that he determined to offer en- 
couragement to the writer. Great, then, was 
the surprise of Benjamin and his master 
when one day the governor and another 
gentleman in their fine clothes called at the 
printing-house and inquired for the young 
man. They took him to a tavern at the cor- 
ner of Third Street, and there over the 
Madeira the governor proposed that Benja- 
min should start an independent shop, pro- 
mising in this case to give him the government 
printing. Benjamin was skeptical, but at 
last it was decided that he should go to Bos- 
ton and seek help of his father ; and in April, 
1724, with a flattering letter from the gov- 
ernor, he set out for his old home. Benja- 



28 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

min's father, however, though pleased by the 
governor's approval, thought the boy too 
young to assume so much responsibility, and 
sent him back to Philadelphia with no money, 
but with his blessing and abundant good 
counsel, advising him to restrain his natural 
tendency to lampoon, and telling him that by 
steady industry and prudent parismony he 
might save enough by the time he was twenty- 
one to set himself up, and withal promising 
help if he came near the matter. 

The return voyage was unimportant save 
for an amusing incident which showed Frank- 
lin's innocence at that time whatever he may 
have been later on, and for an agreement he 
made to collect a debt of thirty-five pounds 
in Pennsylvania for one Yernon, — an agree- 
ment which was to cost him considerable 
anxiety. While stopping in New York, too, 
his reputation as a reader got him an invita- 
tion to visit Governor Burnet, who showed 
him his library and conversed with him on 
books and authors. " This," as Franklin 
observes, " was the second governor who had 
done me the honor to take notice of me, and 



BEGINNINGS IN PHILADELPHIA 29 
for a poor boy like me it was very pleas- 



• 'J 
inof. 



In New York he had picked up his okl 
friend Collins, a companion of his childhood, 
who had preceded him from Boston. Collins 
had passed from license of belief to license 
of morals, and was now besotting himself 
with drink. On the way to Philadelpliia 
Franklin had collected the money due to 
Vernon, and Collins pressed him until he 
drew largely on this sum to help the spend- 
thrift. Franklin regarded this as one of the 
chief errata of his life, and would have re- 
pented his error still more seriously perhaps 
if Vernon had not allowed him time to make 
good the defalcation. It was some five 
years before he was able to restore the 
money, and then, having paid both principal 
and interest, he felt a load taken off his 
mind. 

His association with Collins came to an 
amusing end. Once when they were on 
the Delaware with some other young men, 
Collins refused to row in his turn. " I will 
be rowed home," said he. " We will not row 



30 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

you," said Franklin. " You must," said lie, 
" or stay all night on tlie water, just as you 
please." The others were willing to indulge 
him, but Franklin, being soured with his other 
conduct, continued to refuse. Collins swore 
he would make Franklin row or throw him 
overboard, and came along stepping on the 
thwarts to carry out his threat. But he mis- 
took his man. Franklin clapped his head 
under the fellow's thighs and, rising, pitched 
him headforemost into the river. Collins was 
a good swimmer, but they kept him pulling 
after the boat until he was stifled with vex- 
ation and almost drowned. And that was 
the end of the friendship between the two. 
Collins later went to the Barbadoes, that 
limbo of the unsuccessful in colonial days, 
and Franklin never heard of him again. 

With his employer, Keimer, Franklin 
had little sympathy, despising both his 
knavery and his false enthusiasms. Kei- 
mer wore his beard at full length, because 
somewhere in the Mosaic law it is said, 
" Thou shalt not mar the corners of thy 
beard." He likewise kept the seventh day 



FIRST VOYAGE TO ENGLAND 31 

Sabbath. Franldin disliked both practices, 
but agreed to them on condition of their 
adopting a vegetarian diet, this whim suiting 
him at the time, both because he could save 
money by it and because he wished to give 
himself some diversion in haK starving the 
gluttonous fanatic. Poor Keimer suffered 
grievously, grew tired of the project in three 
months, longed for the fleshpots of Egypt, 
and ordered a roast pig. He invited Frank- 
lin and two women friends to dine with him ; 
but the pig being brought too soon upon the 
table, he could not resist the temptation, and 
ate the whole before his guests came. 

Having to do with such a man, Franklin 
was very glad to accept Sir William Keith's 
offer to set him up alone. It was agreed 
that Franklin should sail to London, with 
letters of introduction, and also with letters 
of credit for purchasing press, types, paper, 
and such like. But for one reason and an- 
other the governor delayed writing the let- 
ters, and at last Franklin actually found 
himself afloat and on the way to London 
without a word from his patron. Great was 



32 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

his chagrin when he learned during the pas- 
sage that it was a habit of this amiable 
magistrate to promise anything and perform 
nothing. Franklin's comment on the occa- 
sion displays the imperturbable justice of 
his mind : " But what shall we think of a 
governor playing such pitiful tricks and im- 
posing so grossly on a poor ignorant boy ! 
It was a habit he had acquired. He wished 
to please everybody, and having little to 
give he gave expectations. He was other- 
wise an ingenious, sensible man, a pretty 
good writer, and a good governor for the 
people, though not for his constituents, the 
proprietaries." 

Franklin reached London December 24, 
1724, and remained there some nineteen 
months, doing many things and learning 
many things during this time that were of 
use to him in after life. But interesting as 
his experiences were, we pass over them with 
a few words. Without difficulty he got 
work with the printers, and employed his 
time industriously — of that there could be 
no doubt. As always, his head was full of 



FIRST VOYAGE TO ENGLAND 33 

plans of economy ; and we are amused to see 
him carry his reforms into the printing 
chapel, attempting to persuade the men to 
give up their expensive beer and take to 
hot- water gruel. 

But though Franklin was always indus- 
trious, he was far from leading a confined 
life. Then as ever he mixed much with 
men, and his experience in London added 
largely no doubt to his knowledge of human 
nature. He even saw something of the ways 
of Grub Street through his friend Ralph, 
who had come with him from Philadelphia. 
" This low writer," as Pope called him, is 
now remembered only for a couple of vicious 
lines in the Dunciad, and for the ignomini- 
ous part he plays in Franklin's Autobio- 
graphy. For many months he was a con- 
tinual drain on Franklin's pocket, and seems 
to have been the boy's evil genius in immo- 
rality as well. 

Another acquaintance introduced him to 
a phase of character quite new to the youth 
from America. This was an old maiden lady 
of seventy, who occupied the garret of his 



34 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

lodging house. Slie was a Roman Catholic, 
and lived the secluded life of a nun, having 
given away to charities all her estate except 
twelve pounds a year, out of which small 
sum she still gave a part, living herself on 
water gruel only, and using no fire but to 
boil it. Franklin was permitted to visit 
her once, and remarks that she was cheerful 
and polite, as also that the room was almost 
without furniture. " She looked pale," he 
says, " but was never sick ; and I give it as 
another instance on how small an income 
life and health may be supported." — Not 
another word ! Ah, Doctor Franklin, you 
were very wise in this world's wisdom I Your 
life was for a young struggling nation a 
splendid example of probity and thrift and 
self -culture. And yet we think your country- 
men could wish you had used this poor en- 
thusiast's folly as something else than a mere 
lesson in economy. 

But the religious imagination played a 
small part in our philosopher's life, and least 
qf all was it active in these London days. 
tes skepticism in fact became acute, and 



FIRST VOYAGE TO ENGLAND 35 

sought relief in public expression. As a 
compositor Franldin was engaged in setting 
up one of the many religious treatises then 
pouring out against the deists, and as the 
author's arguments seemed insufficient to 
the young reasoner, he wrote and printed a 

rejoinder. This is the pamphlet called '^^A 

Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Plea- 
sure and Pain," which he inscribed to his 
friend Ralph, and whose printing he after- 
wards regretted as one of the errata of his 
life. It is a disquisition quite after the 
manner of the day, and, though it has no 
permanent value, is nevertheless a most un- 
usual production for a boy of nineteen. He 
accepts the belief in a God and an all-power- 
ful Providence, and argues thence the com- 
plete absence of free will in man ; pleasure 
and pain are necessary correlatives, and can- 
not exist apart ; the soul is perhaps im- 
mortal, but loses its personal identity at 
death. 

It was time for Franklin to come home 
and prepare for the great work before him. 
He was indeed ready to come when his skill 



36 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

in swimming almost lost him to this country. 
He had made such an impression by his feats 
in the water that one of liis friends and 
pupils in the art proposed they should travel 
over Europe together, and support them- 
selves by giving exhibitions. Fortunately 
Mr. Denham, an older and wiser friend, 
persuaded Franklin to return with him to 
America. 



Ill 

EELIGIOUS BELIEFS. THE JUNTQ 

Franklin reached Philadelphia some 
time in October, 1726, and found many 
things had changed during his absence. 
Keith was no longer governor, but walked 
the streets as a common citizen. He seemed 
a little ashamed at seeing Franklin, and 
passed him by without saying anything. 
Miss Read, too, whom he had left under the 
pledge of an engagement, had grown tired 
of his long neglect, and at the insistence 
of her friends had married a potter named 
Rogers. The union, however, had proved 
unfortunate, and the lady was again living 
at home under her maiden name, it being 
believed that Rogers had a previous wife. 

Franklin at once entered the employment 
of his friend Denham, who opened a thriving 
business on Water Street. But after an 
engagement of four months he was left idle 



38 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

by Mr. Denham's death, and, finding nothing 
better to do, returned to his old employer, 
Keimer. Here he received good wages as 
foreman of the shop, but soon discovered 
that he was engaged only to teach Keimer's 
raw hands the trade, and was to be dis- 
missed as soon as this was accomplished. 
Franklin had a habit apparently of breaking 
with a burdensome friend by means of a 
judicious quarrel. He had done so with his 
brother James, with Collins, with Ralph, 
and now he parted with Keimer in the same 
way. After an interval of a few months, 
during which he was again for a while in the 
employment of Keimer, he entered into part- 
nership with one of the hands, Meredith by 
name, and in the spring of 1728 started an 
independent printing-house. 

At this point Franklin interrupts the 
narrative of his life to give some account 
of his religious beliefs, and we will follow 
his example. And first of all let us say 
frankly that Parton, whose work is likely 
long to remain the standard biography of 
Franklin, gives a false color to the reli- 



RELIGIOUS BELIEFS 39 

gious experience of his hero. Of regenera- 
tion there is in Franklin no sign, but instead 
of that a constant growth, — which is far 
more wholesome. He was always an amused 
and skej)tical observer of the revivals and 
wild enthusiasms kindled by his friend White- 
field and by the inspired preacher of North- 
ampton. And it is quite absurd to speak of 
Franklin as " the consummate Christian of 
his time." There was in him none of the 
emotional nature and little of the spirituality 
that go to make the complete Christian. 
His strength lay in his temperance, prudence, 
justice, and courage, — eminently the pagan 
virtues ; and indeed he was from first to last 
a great pagan, who lapsed now and then / 

into the pseudo-religious platitudes of the / m 
eighteenth century deists. 

His family had early adopted the reformed 
faith, and had possessed the courage to con- 
tinue of this faith through the bloody persecu- 
tions of Queen Mary. Under Charles II. Ben- 
jamin's father went a step further, casting in 
his lot with the non-conformist Presbyterians ; 
and it was the persecutions of that society / 



40 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

wliicli drove liim with liis family to America. 
Independence, or even recalcitrance, together 
with broad toleration of the faith of others, 
was in the family blood, and Benjamin con- 
tinued the good tradition. From revolt 
against Rome to revolt against the estab- 
lished English Church, and from this to 
complete independence of individual belief, 
was after all a natural progression. 

Among the books which Franklin had 
read in Boston were Shaftesbury and Col- 
lins, representative deistical writers of the 
time, and he had been led by them, as he 
says, to doubt " many points of our religious 
doctrines." Now there are in religion two 
elements quite distinct and at times even 
antagonistic, though by the ordinary mind 
they are commonly seen as blended together. 
These are the emotional and the moral na- 
tures. In many religious ceremonies of the 
Orient, religion is purely an emotion, an ex- 
altation of the nerves, accompanied at times 
by outbreaking immorality ; and unfortu- 
nately the same phenomena have been too 
often seen in our own land. This emotional 



RELIGIOUS BELIEFS 41 

element is always connected with, the imagi- 
nation and with belief in some form of reve- 
lation. The other element of religion is the 
law of morality which has been taught the 
world over by true philosophers, and which de- 
pends at last on the simple feeling that a man 
should to a certain varying extent sacrifice 
his personal advantage for the good of the 
community. Now the deists of the eighteenth 
century, of whom Voltaire was the great 
champion, denied revelation and sought to 
banish the emotions from religion. They 
believed in a God who manifested himself 
in the splendid pageantry of nature, and this 
they called natural revelation. They laid 
especial emphasis on morality, but in their 
attempt to sever morals from enthusiasm 
(enthousiasmos^ god-in-us) they too often 
reduced human life to a barren formula. 
From this brief account it will be seen how 
naturally Franklin, with his parentage and 
particidar genius, fell a prey to the teachings 
of Shaftesbury. 

After a little while, however, he began to 
notice that certain of his friends who pro- 



liit^^ 



42 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

tested most loudly against religion were 
quite untrustworthy in their morals as well. 
Moreover he attributed several errata of his 
own early life to lack of religious prin- 
ciples, and to remedy this defect he now 
undertook — deliberately if we may credit 
his later confessions — to build up a religion 
of his own. There is, one must acknow- 
ledge, something grotesque in this endeavor 
to supply the warmth of the emotional imagi- 
nation by the use of cold reason, and had 
Franklin possessed less wit and more humor 
he would never have fallen into such bathos. 
'The little book still exists in which Franklin 
wrote out his creed and private liturgy. 
The creed expresses a belief in "one Su- 
preme, most perfect Being, Author and Fa- 
ther of the gods themselves." Finding this 
God to be infinitely above man's comprehen- 
sion, our religionist goes on to say : " I con- 
ceive, then, that the Infinite has created 
many beings or gods vastly superior to man, 
who can better conceive his perfections than 
we, and return him a more rational and glo- 
rious praise. ... It may be these created 



RELIGIOUS BELIEFS 43 

gods are immortal ; or it may be that, after 
many ages, they are changed, and others 
supply their places. Howbeit, I conceive 
that each of these is exceeding wise and 
good, and very powerful ; and that each has 
made for himself one glorious sun, attended 
with a beautiful and admirable system of 
planets. It is that particular wise and good 
God, who is the author and owner of our 
system, that I propose for the object of my 
praise and adoration." Thereupon follows 
the form of adoration, or liturgy, including 
an invocation, psalm, indication of philo- 
sophic reading to take the place of the lessons, 
singing of the Hymn to the Creator from 
Milton's Paradise Lost, and litany. The 
whole is not without elevation, and the litany, 
composed as it is by a young man of twenty- 
two, touches one with a feeling almost of 
pathos for its true humility and reaching 
out after virtue. 

Franklin continued to use this form of 
worship for a number of years ; but its fan- 
tastic nature seems to have dawned on him 
at last, and he gave it up for a still smipler 



44 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

creed consisting merely in reverence for the 
Deity and in respect for the moral law. In 
the matter of public worship he was of the 
same opinion as Spinoza and many other 
philosophers. He esteemed public worship 
salutary for the state, and paid an annual 
subscription to the Presbyterian Church in 
Philadelphia; but he also esteemed it his 
privilege to stay away from service, and in- 
dulged in this privilege to the full, making 
Sunday his chief day of study. Though 
affiliated in this way to the Presbyterians, 
he showed perfect impartiality, or even in- 
difference, to the various denominations of 
the Christian world. The only sect he ever 
really praised was the Dunlters, whom he 
commended for their modesty in not formu- 
lating a creed. He quotes with pleasure the 
character given himself of being merely " an 
honest man of no sect at all." Tolerance in 
religion and in every other walk of life was 
indeed a marked and distinguishing trait of 
his character. He was of the mind of Bishop 
Warburton, when he said, " Orthodoxy is 
my doxy and Heterodoxy is your doxy." 



RELIGIOUS BELIEFS 45 

It is a little disconcerting to find our 
philosopher himself proposing a new sect, 
which should be called the Society of the 
Free and Easy, and which actually pro- 
gressed so far as to possess two enthusiastic 
disciples. The creed of this projected sect 
may be taken as an expression of Franklin's 
mature belief : — 

" That there is one God, who made all 
things. 

" That he governs the world by his pro- 
vidence. 

" That he ought to be worshipped by 
adoration, prayer, and thanksgiving. 

" But that the most acceptable service to 
God is doing good to man. 

" That the soul is immortal. 

" And that God will certainly reward vir- 
tue and punish vice, either here or here- 
after." 

The real religion of his life consisted 
in the practice of virtue with a minimum 
of emotional imagination. His methodical 
mind found it convenient to tabulate the 
virtues in a manner more precise, as he 



46 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

thought, than they usually appear. His 
table is not without interest : — 

" 1. Temperance. — Eat not to dull- 
ness ; drink not to elevation. 

" 2. Silence. — Speak not but what may 
benefit others or yourself ; avoid trifling 
conversation. 

"3. Order. — Let all your things have 
their places ; let each part of your business 
have its time. 

"4. Kesolution. — Eesolve to perform 
what you ought ; perform without fail what 
you resolve. 

"5. Frugality. — Make no expense but 
to do good to others or yourself ; i. e., waste 
nothing. 

"6. Industry. — Lose no time; be al- 
ways employed in something useful; cut off 
all unnecessary actions. 

" 7. Sincerity. — Use no hurtful deceit ; 
think innocently and justly ; and if you 
speak, speak accordingly. 

"8. Justice. — Wrong none by doing 
injuries or omitting benefits that are your 
duty. 



RELIGIOUS BELIEFS 47 

" 9. Moderation. — Avoid extremes ; 
forbear resenting injuries so mucli as you 
think tliey deserve. 

"10. Cleanliness. — Tolerate no un- 
cleanliness in body, clotbes, or habitation. 

"11. Tranquillity. — Be not disturbed 
at trifles, or at accidents common or un- 
avoidable. 

"12. Chastity. . . . 

" 13. Humility. — Imitate Jesus and 
Socrates." 

These virtues he has arranged in such an 
order that the acquisition of one naturally 
leads to the acquisition of the following. 
As regards chastity, he says himself : " The 
hard-to-be-governed passion of youth" had 
more than once led him astray. But there 
is every reason to suppose he exercised great 
self-control in this as in all other passions. 
We may remark here that Franklin had an 
illegithnate son, William, whom he reared 
in his own home, but who caused him great 
pain by siding with the Tories in the Revo- 
lution. An illegitimate son of William, 
born in London and named William Temple 



48 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

Franklin, adhered to the grandfather and 
was a great comfort to him in his old age. 
One other of these virtues Franklin could 
never acquire. He confesses sadly that try 
as he might he could never learn orderliness. 
But in general it may be said that few men 
have ever set before themselves so wise a 
law of conduct, and that still fewer men 
have ever come so near to attaining their 
ideal. This was both because his ideal was 
so thoroughly practical, and because he was 
a man of indomitable will who had genuinely 
chosen true Philosophy as his guide. " O 
vitas Philosophia dux ! O virtutum inda- 
gatrix expultrixque vitiorum ! " — O Philo- 
sophy, thou guide of life ! thou searcher out 
of virtues and expeller of vices ! — he wrote 
as one of the mottoes on his little book of 
conduct, and to him the words were a living 
reality. 

The virtues in Franklin were eminently 
human. Though dwelling in a community 
of Quakers and often identified with them, 
he looked to anything rather than the inner 
light for guidance, nor could he conceive the 



THE JUNTO 49 

meaning of those " divine pleasures " which 
William Penn declared " are to be found in 
a free solitude." On his voyage home from 
London the boy philosopher had written in 
his journal : " Man is a sociable being, and 
it is, for aught I know, one of the worst of 
punishments to be excluded from society." 
Accordingly on his return to Philadelphia 
he began to cultivate seriously his " sociable 
being." 

Among the few clubs famous in literature 
is the Junto^w hich Frank li n establ igbg^ in 
1727j and which lasted for forty years. 
This club was a little circle of friends, never 
more than twelve, who met on Friday even- 
ings to discuss matters of interest. Twenty- 
four questions were read, with a pause after 
each for filling and drinking a glass of wine. 
Two or three of these questions will suffice 
to show their general aim. 

"1. Have you met with anything in the 
author you last read, remarkable, or suitable 
to be communicated to the Junto, particularly 
in history, morality, poetry, physic, travels, 
mechanic arts, or other parts of knowledge ? 



50 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

"11. Do you think of anything at present, 
in which the Junto may be serviceable to 
mankind, to their country, to their friends, 
or to themselves ? 

"15. Have you lately observed any en- 
croachment on the just liberties of the peo- 
ple? 

" 20. In what manner can the Junto, or 
any of them, assist you in any of your hon- 
orable designs ? " 

Besides the answering of these questions, 
there were regular debates, declamations, and 
the reading of essays ; while the wise Frank- 
lin took care always that no undue heat 
should enter into the proceedings. Singing 
and drinking and other amusements also 
claimed a fair share of the time. It is 
curious to observe that in his Autobio- 
graphy Franklin half apologizes for men- 
tioning the Junto, and declares that his 
reason for so doing was to show how the 
various members of the club aided Mm in 
his business. Were the Autobiography our 
only source of information, we might sum up 
the lessons of Franklin's life in the one word 



> THE JUNTO 61 

Thrift, The truth is that many of Frank- 
lin's schemes for public improvement first 
found a hearing in the secrecy of these 
friendly meetings. 

Before returning to Franklin's active life, 
let us insert here an amusing epitaph which 
he composed about this time, and which has 
become justly famous : — 

THE BODY 

OF 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

PRINTER 

(like the cover of an old book 

its contents torn out 

and stript of its lettering and gilding) 

lies here, food for worms. 

but the work shall not be lost 

FOR IT WILL (as HE BELIEVED) 

APPEAR ONCE MORE 

IN A NEW AND MORE ELEGANT EDITION 

REVISED AND CORRECTED 

BY 

THE AUTHOR. 



IV 



THE SCIENTIST AND PUBLIC CITIZEN IN 
PHILADELPHIA 

Franklin was twenty-two years old when 
he began busmess with Meredith. They had 
no capital, and in fact were in debt for part of 
their appurtenances. Meredith proved not 
only incompetent, but a hard drinker as well ; 
so that Franklin, accepting the kindness of 
two friends who lent him the money, soon 
bought his partner out and conducted the 
shop alone. He prospered steadily, and 
in twenty years was able to retire from ac- 
tive business. From the beginning friends 
came to his aid : through a member of the 
Junto he got printing from the Quakers ; by 
his careful work he drew away from old 
Bradford the public printing for the Assem- 
bly; he engaged assistants, and before many 
years was far the most important printer in 
the colonies. Besides his regular trade he was 



THE SCIENTIST 63 

bookbinder, sold books and stationery, and 
dealt in soap and any other commodity that 
came handy. The description of his thrift 
we must give in his own words : "In or- 
der to secure my credit and character as a 
tradesman, I took care not only to be in 
reality industrious and frugal, but to avoid 
the appearance to the contrary. I dressed 
plain, and was seen at no places of idle diver- 
sion. I never went out a-fishing or shooting ; 
a book indeed sometimes debauched me from 
my work, but that was seldom, was private, 
and gave no scandal ; and to show that I was 
not above my business I sometimes brought 
home the paper I purchased at the stores 
through the streets on a wheelbarrow." 

When Franklin became independent of 
Keimer he turned to his favorite project of 
establishing a newspaper. But in tliis case 
his usual habit of secrecy failed him, and 
knowledge of his plans reached Keimer's 
ears. Immediately his old master anticipated 
him by issuing proposals for a paper which 
he grandiloquently styled " The Universal 
Instructor in all Arts and Sciences, and 



54 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

Pennsylvania Gazette," — an utterly absurd 
sheet, whose contents were taken chiefly 
from an encyclopaedia recently published in 
London. To counteract this Franldin pub- 
lished in Bradford's paper, " The Mercury," 
a series of essays after the manner of Addi- 
son, to which he subscribed the name " Busy- 
Body." Other members of the Junto con- 
tributed to the series ; and Keimer, being 
stung by their satire, replied with coarse 
abuse, and also with attempted imitation. 
But Keimer was quite unequal to the con- 
flict, and after publishing thirty-nine num- 
bers of the paper sold it for a small sum to 
Franklin and Meredith, and himself moved 
to the Barbadoes. Number 40, October 2, 
1729, under the simple title of " The Penn- 
sylvania Gazette," came from Franklin's 
press. The encyclopaedic extracts were cut 
short, and in their stead appeared what news 
could be gathered, with occasional clever 
essays such as only Franklin could write. 
It was for the times a good paper, and the 
printing was admirably done. 

With prosperity Franklin began to think 



THE SCIENTIST 65 

of matrimony. A family of Godfreys lived 
in the same house with him, and now Mrs. 
Godfrey undertook to make a match be- 
tween him and the daughter of a relative of 
hers. Franklin's accomit of this affair for 
its coolness and placidity may almost be 
compared with Gibbon's " I sighed as a 
lover, I obeyed as a son." On learning 
that the girl's parents could not or would 
not give with her enough money to pay off 
his debts, the gallant suitor at once and irre- 
vocably withdrew. 

He then looked about him for another 
match, but found to his chagrin that an 
adventurous printer could not command an 
agreeable wife and a dowry at the same 
time. Being determined to marry, that 
he might bring order into his life, he at 
last turned to Miss Read, with whom he 
had maintained a friendly correspondence, 
and notwithstanding the difficulties in the 
way married her on the 1st of Septem- 
ber, 1730. If he rejected Miss Godfrey 
because she brought no dowry with her, he 
praised his wife chieflv because she aided 



56 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

him in his economies. " He that would 
thrive must ask his wife," he quotes, and 
congratulates himself that he has a wife as 
much disposed to frugality as himseK. She 
helped in the business ; they kept no idle 
servants ; their table was plain and simple, 
their furniture of the cheapest. His break- 
fast for a long time was bread and milk, and 
he ate it out of a twopenny earthen porrin- 
ger with a pewter spoon. " But mark," he 
adds, " how luxuries will enter families and 
make a progress despite of principles : being 
called one morning to breakfast, I found it 
in a china bowl, with a spoon of silver ! 
They had been bought for me without my 
knowledge by my wife, and had cost her the 
enormous sum of twenty-three shillings, for 
which she had no other excuse or apology to 
make but that she thought her husband de- 
served a silver spoon and china bowl as well 
as any of his neighbors. This was the first 
appearance of plate and china in our house, 
which afterward, in a course of years as our 
wealth increased, augmented gradually to 
several hundred pounds in value." 



THE SCIENTIST 67 

Mrs. Franklin's temper was not of tlie 
serenest, and her manners perhaps were not 
such as would have honored him had she 
followed him into the great world ; but she 
made him a good wife, — and we need not 
repeat the tattle which we are told is still 
current among some of the high families of 
Philadelphia. They had two children, — a 
son, the idol of his father's heart, who died 
as a child ; and a daughter, who married 
Richard Bache, and is the ancestress of a 
large family. 

In this happy home, and as his business 
prospered, Frankhn found more and more 
time for study and self-improvement. In 
1733 he began the acquisition of languages, 
teaching himself to read French fluently, and 
then passing on to Italian and Spanish. 
Chess was always a favorite amusement with 
him ; and we can imagine the grave philo- 
sopher playing a cautious and invulnerable 
game, with now and then, when least ex- 
pected, a brilliant sally. But his conscience 
seems always to have protested against the 
waste of time involved, and he now made 



58 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

use of the game to forward liis studies. 
With his favorite antagonist he agreed that 
the victor in each game should impose some 
task in Italian, which the other on his honor 
was to complete before the next meeting. 
As his opponent was a pretty even match 
for him they both made steady progress in 
the language. In Latin he had had a year's 
instruction at school, and later in life he 
dabbled a little in that language; but his 
knowledge of the classics was always super- 
ficial, and he seems to have entertained 
something like a spite against them. 

In 1732 Franklin began the publication 
of an almanac under the name of Richard 
Saunders, which he continued for twenty- 
five years, and which gained immense popu- 
larity as Poor Richard's Almanac. It was 
the flourishing time of such publications. 
Since the year 1639, when Stephen Daye 
printed his first almanac at Cambridge, these 
annual messages had increased in number 
until after theology they became perhaps the 
most genuine feature of colonial literature. 
. And from the first they displayed the sort 



THE SCIENTIST 52 

of shrewdness and liumor whicli have always I 
been characteristic of the American mind. / 
So, too, the bulk of Poor Richard's produc- 
tion was humor, sometimes blunt and coarse, 
and sometimes instinct with the finest irony. 
Perhaps the best of Poor Richard's jokes 
is that played at the expense of Titan 
Leeds, his rival in Philadelphia. In the 
first issue Mr. Saunders announces the immi- 
nent death of his friend Titan Leeds : " He 
dies, by my calculation, made at his request, 
on October 17, 1733, 3 ho., 29 m., p. m., at 
the very instant of the ^^ of O and ^ .^ By 
his own calculation, he will survive till the 
26th of the same month. This small differ- 
ence between us we have disputed whenever 
we have met these nine years past ; but at 
length he is inclined to agree vdth my judg- 
ment. Which of us is most exact a little 
time will now determine. As, therefore, 
these Provinces may not longer expect to 
see any of his performances after this year, 
I think myself free to take up the task." 
Naturally Mr. Titan Leeds objected with 

^ (5 signifies conjunction ; the sun ; § Mercury. 



60 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

strenuous voice to tliis summary manner of 
being shuffled out of the world ; and Frank- 
lin's yearly protest that Leeds is really dead, 
and his appeal to the degenerating wit of 
Leeds's almanac to prove his assertion, is one 
of the most successful and malicious jokes 
ever perpetrated. We ought to add, how- 
ever, that this venomous jest is borrowed 
bodily from Dean Swift's treatment of the 
poor almanac-maker. Partridge. Indeed it 
might be said of Franklin, as Moliere said 
of himseK, that he took his own wherever 
he found it. 

But what gave the almanac its permanent 
fame was the cleverness of the maxims scat- 
tered through its pages. These wise saws 
Franklin gathered from far and wide, often, 
however, reshaping them and marking them 
with the stamp of his peculiar genius. As 
might be expected, they are chiefly directed 
to instill the precepts of industry and fru- 
gality. On ceasing to edit the almanac in 
1757 Franklin gathered together the best of 
these proverbs and wove them into a con- 
tinuous narrative, which he pretends to have 



THE SCIENTIST 61 

heard spoken at an auction by an old man 
called Father Abraham. This speech of 
Father Abraham became immediately fa- 
mous, was reprinted in England, was trans- 
lated into the languages of Europe, and still 
lives. It made the name of Poor Richard 
a household word the world over. 

Franklin, however, had many intellectual 
interests besides reading and writing. He 
was always interested in music, himseK play- 
ing the guitar and harp and violin ; and one 
of his proudest achievements was the perfec- 
tion of a musical instrument called the ar- 
monica, which consisted of a series of glasses 
so designed as to give forth the notes of the 
musical scale when chafed with the mois- 
tened finger. 

He was moreover sensitive in his own way 
to the various spiritual movements that swej)t 
over the country. This was the period of 
wild revivals, when religion, entering into 
the converted soul with inconceivable vio- 
lence, found expression in gasping shrieks, 
rigid faintings, and strong convulsions ; and 
the leader of this movement, strange as it 



62 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

may seem, was a warm friend of Franklin's. 
\j^ George Whitefield first visited Philadelphia 
t/ ' in 1739, and immediately filled the city with 

enthusiasm by his powerful oratory. Frank- 
lin was astonished at the hold he got on the 
people, especially as he assured them they 
were naturally half beasts and half devils ; 
but our philosopher admits that he himself 
succumbed once to the preacher's spell. 
Whitefield was preaching a begging sermon 
for a project which Franklin did not approve, 
and the latter made a silent resolve that he 
would not contribute. He had in his pocket 
a handful of copper money, three or four 
silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As 
the orator proceeded, he began to soften and 
concluded to give the copper. Another stroke 
of eloquence made him ashamed of that 
and determined him to give the silver ; and 
the peroration was so admirable that he emp- 
tied his pocket wholly into the collector's dish, 
gold and all. But he was never too much 
carried away to omit analyzing and observ- 
ing ; and on one occasion, when Whitefield 
was preaching in the open air, he calculated 



THE SCIENTIST 63 

by a clever experiment that tlie speaker might 
be heard by more than thirty thousand per- 
sons. Nor did he suffer Whitefield's cant 
phrases to pass unchallenged. At one time 
he invited the preacher to stop at his house, 
and Whitefield in accepting declared that if 
Franklin made the kind offer for Christ's 
sake he should not miss of a reward. To 
which the pliilosopher replied : " Don't let 
me be mistaken ; it was not for Chrisfs sake, 
but for your sake." . 

This intimate acquaintance with White- ^ h j^ 
field forms something like a bond of union Jf'A^rci/^ 
between Frankhn and his only intellectual ^^^ / 
compeer, Jonathan Edwards ; and the differ- pd^^ 
ent attitude of the two men towards the wan- 
dering revivalist is a good illustration of the 
great contrast in their characters. If Frank- 
lin may in some ways be called the typical 
American, yet the lonely, introverted, God- 
intoxicated soul of Edwards stands as a sol- 
emn witness to depths of understanding in 
his countrymen which Dr. Franldin's keen 
wit had no means of fathoming. But in one 
respect the two minds were alike : they were 



64 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

both acute observers of nature, and we have 
only to read Edwards's treatise on spiders, 
written when he was twelve years old, and to 
follow his later physical investigations, which 
indeed foreshadowed some of Franklin's elec- 
trical discoveries, to learn how brilliant a 
part he might have played in science if his in- 
telligence had not been troubled by the terri- 
ble theology of the day. As for Frankhn, we 
have seen the inquisitive bent of his mind in 
childhood, and as he grew older the habit of 
observing and recording and theorizing be- 
came his master passion. Though scarcely 
a professional scientist, his various discover- 
ies in natural history and his mechanical in- 
ventions brought great renown to him as a 
man, and were even an important factor in 
the national struggle for independence. 

Nothing was too small or too great to at- 
tract his investigating eyes. All his life he 
was interested in the phenomena of health 
and in the care of the body, and even as a 
laoy, it will be remembered, he had experi- 
mented in the use of a vegetarian diet. 
He had his own theory in regard to colds. 



THE SCIENTIST 65 

maintaining that they are not the result 
of exposure to a low temperature, but are 
due to foul air and to a relaxed state of 
the body, — as in general they no doubt 
are. His letters are full of clever pro- 
tests against the common theory, and at 
times he was brought by his opinions into 
amusing conflict with the habits of other 
persons. On one occasion in a tavern he 
was compelled to occupy the same bed with 
John Adams, who, being an invalid and 
afraid of night air, shut down the window. 
" Oh ! " says Franklin, " don't shut the win- 
dow, we shall be suffocated." Adams an- 
swered that he feared the evening air. Dr. 
Franklin replied, " The air within the cham- 
ber will soon be, and indeed now is, worse 
than that without doors. Come, open the 
window and come to bed, and I wiU convince 
you. I believe you are not acquainted with 
my theory of colds." Whereupon Adams 
got into bed, and the Doctor began an 
harangue upon air and cold, respiration and 
perspiration, with which the Bostonian was 
so much amused that he soon fell asleep and 



66 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

left Franklin and liis philosophy together. 
The effect of drafts on chimneys was just as 
interesting to our philosopher as their effect 
ou the human system, and it was one of his 
diversions when visiting the great houses 
of England and Europe to cure smoky fire- 
places. From chimneys to stoves is an easy 
step, and the invention of the so-called 
Pennsylvania stove is one of his best known 
achievements. 

All his life he was an observer of the 
weather, and a student of the winds and 
tides. His first discovery in natural history 
was an observation of the fact that storms 
move against the wind, that is, for instance, 
that a northeast storm along the coast is 
felt at Philadelphia earlier than at Boston. 
He made a careful study of the tempera- 
ture of the gulf stream in the Atlantic ; and 
in a letter written when he was seventy- 
nine years old he gives a long account of 
his inventions and observations in nautical 
matters. 

But his discoveries in electricity quite 
overshadow all his other work of the sort. 



THE SCIENTIST 67 

and on them must rest his real claim to sci- 
entific renown. For many years the world 
had been amusing itself with various ma- 
chines for making sparks and giving shocks, 
and after the discovery of the Ley den jar, in 
17457Sie manipulation of electrical toys and 
machines became the rage among scientists 
and even among the people of society. Just 
about this time a friend in England sent 
Franklin specimens of the glass tubes used 
to create electricity by friction, and immedi- 
ately Franklin's inquisitive mind was fired to 
take up the new study. So fully indeed was 
his attention engrossed by the series of experi- 
ments he now undertook, alone and with 
several investigating friends in the city, that 
business became irksome to him and he re- 
tired from active management of the printing 
house. Besides making many ingenious toys 
and showy experiments, Franklin added three 
contributions of real importance to science. 

1. He anticipated Faraday in the discov- 
ery that the electricity in a charged Leyden 
jar resides on the glass and not on the metal 
coatings. He, however, made no generaliza- 
tions from this discovery. 



68 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

2. He advanced the fluid theory of elec- 
tricity, recognizing clearly the dual nature of 
the varieties commonly called positive and 
negative from the mathematical symbols 
used to express them. 

3. He established the identity of lightning 
and electricity. 

To understand the importance of this last 
discovery we must remember with what 
terror the world had hitherto regarded this 
bewildering apparition of the sky. It was 
not so much the dread of feeling above one 
an irresponsible power subject to a law that 
knows no sympathy with human life, as the 
more debasing fear of superstition, that sees 
in the red thunderbolt a deadly mstrument 
of vengeance hurled by the hand of an angry 
deity, and that loosens the inmost sinews of a 
jnan's moral courage. With the knowledge 
^ that lightning is only a magnified electrical 
spark, fell one of the last strongholds of false 
religion. And there is something eminently 
fit in the fact that this lurking mystery of 
the heavens was finally exploded by Dr. 
Ei-anklin, the exponent of common sense. 



THE SCIENTIST 69 

I am told by a speciaKst that the neatness 
and thoroughness of the reasoning by which 
Franklin established his theory before pro- 
ceeding to experimentation are most lauda- 
ble, and I am sure his letters of explana- 
tion have a literary charm not often found 
in scientific writing. The paper in which 
Franklin developed his theory and showed 
how it might be tested by drawing lightning 
from the clouds by means of a pointed wire 
set up on a steeple, was sent to his friend in 
England, and there printed ; and at the sug- 
gestion of the great Buffon the same paper 
was translated into French. The pamphlet 
created a sensation in France, and the pro- 
posed experiment was actually performed in 
the presence of the king. Before the re- 
port, however, of the successful experiment 
reached Frankhn he had himseK verified 
his theory, using a kite to attain an altitude, 
as there was no spire or high building in 
Philadelphia. Taking his son with him, he 
went to an old cow house in the country, be- 
fore a storm, and there, to catch the electric 
fluid, sent up his kite made of an old silk 



70 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

handkercliief. A wire extended from tlie 
upright stick of the kite, and this was con- 
nected with the cord, which when wet acted 
as a good conductor. The part of the cord 
held in his hand was of silk, and between this 
and the wet hempen cord a key was inserted 
and connected with a Leyden jar. How suc- 
cessfid the experiment proved to be, all the 
world knows. Somehow all the important 
events of Franklin's life are dramatic and 
picturesque, and this scene, especially, of the 
philosopher in the storm drawing down the 
very thunderbolts of heaven has always had 
a fascination for the popular mind. The de- 
tailed story of the experunent became public 
only through Franklin's conversation with 
his friends. When he learned that his the- 
ory had been previously verified in France, 
his modesty was so great that in writing he 
simply told how the experiment might be 
performed with a kite, never that he him- 
self had actually accomplished it. In con- 
sequence of this discovery he was at once 
elected a member of the Royal Society of 
London, Yale and Harvard gave him the 



- THE SCIENTIST 71 

honorary degree of master of arts, and every- 
where he was celebrated as the foremost 
philosopher of the day. 

When the thne comes we shall see that 
Franklin's scientific fame was a real aid to 
him in his diplomatic career ; now we must 
turn our eyes backward and trace from the 
beginning his slow rise in political and civic 
power. And it is a pecuHar feature of the 
day and of Franklin's individual character 
that many of his reforms took their start in 
the gayety of social intercourse. There was 
nothing morose, nothing stern, in our genial 
philosopher. Though always temperate, his 
vivacity and easy politeness made him wel- 
come in any merry company of the day. 
He could sing with the best of the young 
blades and even compose his own ditties ; 
and one of these songs, " The Old Man's 
Wish," he tells us he sang at least a thou- 
sand times. The chorus of the song is char- 
acteristic enough to be quoted : — 

" May I govern my passions with absolute sway, 
Grow wiser and better as my strength wears away, 
Without gout or stone, by gentle decay ; " 



72 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 




and another ballad in praise of his wife still 
has a kind of popularity : — 

" Of their Chloes and Phyllises poets may prat^, 
I sing my plain country Joan, 
These twelve years my wife, still the joy of my life, 
Blest day that I made her my own." 

Is 

4// Franldin's first public improvement car- 



jfv^^'ries us back to the early leathern-apron 



days of the Junto. Books were a rare com- 
modity among the frugal members of that 
club, and for a while they increased their re- 
sources by keeping all their volumes together 
in the club room for common use. But this 
plan proving hardly feasible, Franklin in the 
year 1731 drew up proposals for a city library. 
His method of arousing public interest in 
the scheme was one to which he always had 
recourse on such occasions, and is a credit 
to his modesty as well as to his shrewdness. 
" I put myself," he says, " as much as I could 
out of sight, and stated it as a scheme of a 
number of friends, who had requested me to 
go about and propose it to such as they 
thought lovers of reading." He succeeded, 
as he always did in his projects, and the 



THE SCIENTIST 73 

library, still an honored institution of Phila- 
delphia, is the parent of all the subscrip- 
tion libraries of the country. 

Through the aid of the Junto, also, Frank- 
lin set in motion another project. As a 
boy he had seen the first fire company started 
in Boston, and now that his Quaker home // 
had grown to be a thriving city, he under- 
took to introduce the same system there. 
No doubt many of our readers have seen 
the curious relics of these colonial fire com- 
panies, — old leathern buckets stamped 
with various devices and with the owner's 
name, which were used to pass water rapidly 
from hand to hand. The companies had a 
social as well as a useful aim, so that f amihes 
were proud to preserve such memorials of 
the old days. 

Owing to the wretched system in vogue, 
the night watch of the city had fallen into 
a deplorable state, the watchmen consisting 
of a set of ragamuffins who passed their 
nights in tippling and left the town to take 
care of itself. To remedy this evil Frank- 
lin made use of the Junto and of his paper, 



74 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

"The Gazette," and once more his efforts 
were successful. 

It seemed, indeed, as if there were no 
limits to his activity. At different times 
he bent his energies to getting the streets 
y^ paved, to improving the lighting of the city, 

to introducing various novelties in agricul- 
ture, and to assisting other projects, such 
as the establishment of the Pennsylvania 
hospital. More important, perhaps, than 
these was the founding of the academy 
which has since developed into the Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania. As early as 1743 we 
find Franklin regretting that there was no 
convenient college where he might send his 
son to be educated ; and in 1749 he took up 
the matter seriously, publishing a pamphlet 
which he called, " Proposals relating to the 
Education of Youth in Pennsylvania." Nor 
did his zeal end here. He continued to urge 
on the project, and in a short time the money 
was raised and the school actually opened. 
Franklin was for more than forty years a 
trustee of the institution, and took just pride 
in the good which it accomplished for the 



THE SCIENTIST 75 

community. His purpose in one respect, 
however, was foiled ; he was an ardent advo- 
cate of English and the sciences in educa- 
tion, and would have been glad to have the 
study of Latin and Greek utterly banished 
from the schools. Fortunately in this matter 
public opinion was too strong for him, and 
he was obliged to succumb to the regular 
curriculum. For some reason, whether be- 
cause of early lack of traming in these 
studies or because his mind was of such a 
sort as to be completely absorbed in the pre- 
sent, he was all his life violently prejudiced 
against the classics, and on his very death- 
bed one of his last acts was to compose a 
mocking diatribe against the use of those 
languages. It is one of the few cases where 
his judgment was marred, not by the limita- 
tions of his intelligence, but a lack of the 
deeper imagination, — where he applied his 
footrule of utility to measure quantities be- 
yond its reach. 

With Franklin's increasing prosperity and 
popularity his influence in matters political 
grew more and more dominant. His first 



^^ 



76 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

^ V > recognition in this field was in 1736, when he 
\\, was chosen clerk of the General Assembly, — 
a position which he continued to hold until he 
was elected a member of the Assembly itself. 
He found this office very tedious, but amused 
himself during the long debates by con- 
structing magic squares of figures and by 
other diversions of the sort. Constant to 
his practice he lets us know that he retained 
the position chiefly because it enabled him 
to get control of the public printing, and 
once when threatened by the advent of a 
new member with loss of this lucrative em- 
ployment he saved himself by his usual re- 
course to honorable stratagem. Having 
heard that this gentleman had in his library 
a certain very scarce and curious book, 
Franklin wrote him a note expressing a de- 
sire to read the volume and asking to borrow 
it for a few days. The book came immedi- 
ately, and the two students were at once 
bound together in friendship. " This is an- 
other instance," Franklin adds, " of the truth 
of an old maxim I had learned, which says : 
' He that has once done you a kindness will 



THE SCIENTIST 77 

be more ready to do you another than he 
whom you yourself have obliged.' " 

Other positions came to Franklin in due 
time. The very next year he was made 
postmaster of Philadelphia, and filled the 
office so well that some years later he was 
put at the head of the postal system for the 
colonies. This gave him an opportunity to 
become familiar with the political affairs of 
the whole country and enhanced his useful- 
ness very much. 

What first brought him into real promi- 
nence was his activity during the troublesome 
times that now followed with the Indians. 
England was at war with France, and as 
usual the combatants stirred up the savages 
to commit all kinds of atrocities. Franklin 
was much incensed that the peace-loving 
Quakers of his colony should refuse to make 
any provision for defense against the Indians 
on the western frontier or against possible 
attacks of the French from the river. His 
indignation was increased by a visit to 
Boston in 1746, where he found the people 
in a state of warlike fervor after the con- 



78 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

quest of Louisburg ; and on returning home 
he wrote an eloquent pamplilet, called 
"Plam Truth," to rouse the colony to a 
sense o£ its peril. Despite the half-hearted 
opposition of the Quakers in the Assembly 
companies were raised, cannon, by the shrewd 
policy of Franklin, were got from New York, 
and the promoter of the movement was even 
asked to act as colonel of the troops, — an 
honor which he declined. One of Franklin's 
friends now warned him that the Quakers 
in the Assembly would dismiss him from his 
position as clerk and advised him to resign 
at once to avoid the disgrace. Franklin's 
reply, which he was fond of quoting in after 
life, shows the sturdy nature of the man : 
" I shall never ash^ never refuse^ nor ever 
RESIGN an office." As it happened, how- 
ever, he was again chosen unanimously at 
the next election, and we may suppose that 
he was keen enough to know with whom he 
had to deal. The good Quakers woidd not 
fight, but they were not always averse to 
have some one do their fighting for them. 
We are approaching the tumultuous times 



THE SCIENTIST 79 

of the Seven Years' War, when the sound 
of cannon was indeed heard round the world, 
and when the prowess of England's arms 
added India and Canada to her empire. In 
1752 Franklin, who was now a member of 
the legislature, was sent, together with the 
speaker of the Assembly, to confer with the 
Indians of Ohio ; and if no important re- 
sults came from the conference it at least 
helped to give Franklin an insight into 
Indian character such as few men possessed. 
Two years later, when actual war became 
imminent, he was chosen one of the commis- 
sioners from Pennsylvania to meet those of 
the other colonies at Albany and consult on 
measures of common defense. Any one 
might see that the colonies would be stronger 
united than separated, and several of the 
commissioners came prepared with proposals 
of union. Franklin had already published 
in his " Gazette " an article on the subject, 
to which he had added a wood-cut show- 
ing a snake cut in thirteen pieces with the 
device Join or Die. On the way to 
Albany he had drawn up a plan of union 



80 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

which pleased the Congress, and which re- 
sembled very much the form of union after- 
wards adopted during the Revolution ; but 
as Franklin observes, " Its fate was singu- 
lar ; the Assemblies did not adopt it, as they 
all thought there was too much prerogative 
in it ; and in England it was judged to have 
too much of the democratic." Instead of 
this scheme the London Board of Trade de- 
vised a plan of their own which, besides 
other objectionable features, involved the de- 
plorable principle of taxing the colonies 
without their consent. It is interesting to 
find Franldin the next winter in Boston dis- 
cussing the improprieties of this plan with 
Governor Shirley, and it has been truly ob- 
served that his arguments include almost all 
that was later brought out when the question 
of taxation without representation became a 
burning question. 

In 1755 we find Franklin connected with 
an event which first brought Washington 
into prominence. That was the year of 
Braddock's unfortunate campaign, and the 
Assembly of Pennsylvania, which had rQ- 



THE SCIENTIST 81 

fused to grant money for the war and now 
feared tliat Braddock would take revenge 
by ravaging the colony, sent Franklin into 
Maryland to consult with the general and 
pacify him if possible. It is needless to say 
that Franklin succeeded. By cunning ad- 
vertisements and appeals to the farmers in 
Pennsylvania he got wagons and teams for 
the army ; but to do this he had to pledge 
himself for a considerable sum of money, his 
own credit being higher than that of the 
government, and after the general rout in 
which many of the wagons and horses were 
lost he was compelled to pay out large sums 
of money for which he was never entirely 
reimbursed. He also persuaded the Assem- 
bly of Pennsylvania to provide the younger 
officers of the regiment with horses and 
stores for the campaign, although to Wash- 
ington, as we know, all this accumulation of 
provisions for such an expedition seemed no 
better than a nuisance. Franklin, too, had 
his fears, and even went so far as to caution 
Braddock against the ambuscades of the 
Indians. Braddock smiled at his ignorance, 



82 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

and replied : " These savages may indeed 
be a formidable enemy to your raw Ameri- 
can militia, but upon the king's regular and 
disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible tliey 
should make any impression." Franklin 
tells us lie was conscious of the impropriety 
of disputing with a military man in matters 
of his profession, and said no more. The 
story of Braddock's defeat is only too well 
known ; but to Franklin at least the cam- 
paign brought some profit. When later he 
went to England he found that the gen- 
eral's account of his intelligence and gener- 
osity had added considerably to his reputa- 
tion. 

The failure of the expedition had left the 
western frontier open to the savage raids of 
the Indians, and Pennsylvania, owing to her 
unprotected condition, suffered more than 
the other colonies. Franklin came to the 
rescue with a bill to raise volunteers which 
was carried through the Assembly ; troops 
were quickly organized, and the philosopher 
was himself appointed general. He was 
two months in the field and conducted him- 



THE SCIENTIST 83 

self with admirable prudence, although he 
did not undergo the test of actual fighting. 
After that time he was recalled by the 
governor to Philadelphia, for the Assembly 
was about to meet and his services were 
needed at home. 

The old trouble between the proprietary 
governor and the Assembly had now reached 
an acute stage. The two sons of William 
Penn, into whose hands the colony had de- 
scended, pursued a narrow and selfish policy, 
forcing the governor to veto every bill for 
raising money unless the estates owned by 
the proprietors were exempted from taxa- 
tion. From the beginning Franklin had 
stood with the popular party in opposing 
these regulations, yet curiously enough had 
always been a favorite with the governors. 
These magistrates were bound to follow the 
proprietors' will under penalty of being re- 
called ; but on the other hand their salary 
was dependent on the pleasure of the As- 
sembly, and they may well have clung to a 
wise and tolerant intermediary hke Frank- 
hn. Nothing, however, could now allay the 



84 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

hostile feelings. The Assembly voted money 
for immediate defense imder the conditions 
imposed, but at the same time declared that 
the measure was not to be held as a prece- 
dent for the future ; and Franklin was sent 
to England to treat with the proprietaries in 
person, and if necessary with the Crown. 



FIRST AND SECOND MISSIONS TO ENGLAND 

Franklin reached London July 27, 1757, 
when lie was fifty-one years old. He re- 
mained in England five years, and during 
that period his life was one of manifold 
interests and vexations. His business with 
the Penns first engaged his attention ; but 
from those stubborn gentlemen he got no- 
thing but insolence and delays. After much 
manoeuvring the dispute was brought before 
a committee of the Privy Council, where the 
Pennsylvania Assembly through its repre- 
sentative virtually won its case. The pro- 
prietary estates were made subject to taxa- 
tion, and this bone of contention was for a 
time removed. It was indeed a great vic- 
tory for the Philadelphia printer ; but per- 
haps its chief value was the training it gave 
him for the more important diplomatic nego- 
tiations that were to come later. There was 



86 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

that in Franklin's nature which made him 
an ideal diplomatist. Under the utmost 
candor and simplicity he concealed a pene- 
tration into character and a skill in using 
legitimate chicanery that rarely missed their 
mark. Then, too, he was persistent : what 
he undertook to do he never left until it was 
done. Though far from being an orator, he 
wielded a pen that for clearness and logical 
pointedness has scarcely been surpassed, and 
his powers of irony and sarcasm were worthy 
of Swift himself. 

Among other subjects which engaged 
Franklin's pen at this time was a question 
of vital interest, as he thought, to the em- 
pire. Under the masterly guidance of the 
great Pitt, England had come out victorious 
in the struggle with France, and the govern- 
ment was now debating whether Canada 
should be retained or given back to the 
French. The chief argument for surrender- 
ing the province was ominous of the future. 
" A neighbor that keeps us in some awe is 
not always the worst of neighbors. ... If we 
acquire all Canada, we shall soon find North 



MISSIONS TO ENGLAND 87 

America itself too powerful and too populous 
to be governed by us at a distance." To 
this timid reasoning, which was attributed 
to William Burke, Franklin replied in a 
pamphlet, discussing the whole question with 
the utmost acumen, displaying the future 
greatness of the empire in America, and de- 
nying that the colonies would ever revolt. 
Touching this last apprehension he says : 
" There are so many causes that must oper- 
ate to prevent it that I will venture to say 
a union amongst them for such a purpose is 
not merely improbable, it is impossible. . . . 
When I say such a union is impossible, I 
mean without the most grievous tyranny and 
oppression. . . . The waves do not rise hut 
when the wind blows. . . . What such an 
administration as the Duke of Alva's in the 
Netherlands might produce, I know not ; but 
this, I think, I have a right to deem impos- 
sible." Strange words to come from Frank- 
lin in those days ; but it is thought they were 
of considerable influence in the final decision 
of the question. Franklin indeed was always 
fond of prophesying the future greatness of 



88 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

America, and again in the diplomatic debates 
after the revolutionary war he long insisted 
that Canada should be severed from Eng- 
land and joined to the thirteen States. 

But our philosopher had much to occupy 
him besides politics. He had taken lodgings 
at No. 7 Craven Street with a Mrs. Ste- 
venson, in whom and in whose daughter he 
found warm and congenial friends. His cor- 
respondence with " Dear Polly," the daugh- 
ter, contains some of his most entertaining 
letters ; and he even planned, but unsuc- 
cessfully, to make her the wife of his son 
William. His fame as a scientist had pre- 
ceded him, and introduced him into the soci- 
ety of many distinguished men in England 
and Scotland, among whom his genial nature 
freely expanded. And nothing could stop 
the activity of his mind, not even sickness. 
For eight weeks he struggled with a fever, but 
the letter to his wife conveying the story of 
his illness reads as if he were almost willing 
to undergo such an experience for the 
opportunity of studying pathology which it 
offered. 



MISSIONS TO ENGLAND 89 

At last he was ready to return home. 
The University of St. Andrews had con- 
ferred on him the degree of Doctor of Laws, 
and afterwards Oxford had done the same. 
He had succeeded in his mission, his son had 
been appointed governor of New Jersey, and 
he looked forward to a life of honorable ease 
in his adopted city. Just before sailing he 
wrote to Lord Kames : "I am now waiting 
here only for a wind to waft me to America, 
but cannot leave this happy island and my 
friends in it without extreme regret, though 
I am going to a country and a people that I 
love. I am going from the old world to the 
new, and I fancy I feel hke those who are 
leaving tliis world for the next. Grief at 
the parting, fear of the passage, hope of the 
future, — these different passions all affect 
their minds at once, and these have tendered 
me down exceedingly." 

Peace had come to Europe in 1763, but 
not to America. The Indians, who had been 
aroused by European intrigue, were not so 
easily pacified, and western Pennsylvania 
especially continued to suffer from their 



90 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

ravages. The men of the frontier banded 
together for retaliation, and unfortunately 
their revenge equaled the brutality of the 
red savages. Religious odium added bitter- 
ness to the passions. The Scotch-Irish Pres- 
byterians of the west, enraged at the supine- 
ness of the eastern Quakers, made the ex- 
termination of the Indians a point of reli- 
gion. The horror reached its climax when 
the good people of Paxton in cold blood mas- 
sacred twenty helpless and innocent Indians, 
and then with a large following marched 
towards Philadelphia with the avowed pur- 
pose of murdering in the name of an angry 
God one hundred and forty peaceful Mora- 
vian Indians. The governor, a nephew of the 
proprietaries, came, as all men did, to Frank- 
lin in his perplexity ; he even lodged in 
Franklin's house, and concerted with him 
hourly on the means of repelling the invaders. 
The " Paxton boys " had reached German- 
town. The city was in a panic, and there was 
no time to lose. Franklin first got together 
a regiment of militia, and then, with three 
other gentlemen, went out to Germantown 



MISSIONS TO ENGLAND 91 

to remonstrate with tlie fanatics. His mis- 
sion was successful, and the insurrection was 
quelled ; but Franklin himself had gained 
many enemies by his action. The people 
were largely in favor of the Paxton rioters ; 
and the governor, now relieved of his im- 
mediate fears, made an infamous proclama- 
tion setting a price upon Indian scalps. A 
strong coalition was formed against Frank- 
lin ; to the enmity of the proprietary party 
was now added the distrust of the people. 

Just at this time the old trouble between 
the governor and the Assembly broke out 
more virulently. Despite the decision of the 
London Council, the governor vetoed an im- 
portant bill because the proprietary estates 
were not exempted from taxation. An an- 
gry debate arose in the Assembly as to 
whether they should petition the king to 
withdraw Pennsylvania from the proprie- 
taries and make it a crown colony. Frank- 
lin took an active part in this contest, and 
threw all the weight of his authority in favor 
of the petition ; but in the election which 
followed in 1764 the combination of the 



92 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

aristocrats, who sided with the proprietaries, 
and of the fanatics, who favored the Pax ton 
uprising, was too strong for him, and he was 
not returned. After a stormy debate, how- 
ever, the Assembly adopted the petition ; 
and Franklin, despite the bitter personal 
attacks of John Dickinson, was chosen as 
agent to carry the request to England. 

The petition was not allowed, and Penn- 
sylvania remained in the hands of the pro- 
prietaries until it became an independent 
state. But other questions, far more im- 
portant than the local difficulties of any 
one colony, were to occupy Franldin's and 
the other commissioners' time. Franklin 
was in England from December, 1764, 
until March of 1775, and during these 
ten years was busily engaged in support- 
ing the colonies in their unequal struggle 
against the British Parliament. He was 
the accredited representative of Pennsyl- 
vania, Georgia, New Jersey, and Massachu- 
setts, and before the government and the 
people of England stood as the champion of 
the whole province. Every one knows the 



MISSIONS TO ENGLAND 93 

nature of tlie acts whicli finally created a 
new empire in the West, — tlie Stamp Act, 
the duty on tea, the Boston Port bill. Their 
very names still stir the patriotic blood of 
America. The principle at issue was clearly 
announced in the battle cry, " No taxation 
without representation." Franklin was a 
stanch advocate of the American claims, and 
threw all the weight of his personal influence 
and of his eloquent pen into the work. But 
in one respect he seems to have been de- 
ceived : during the first years of his mission 
he held Parliament responsible for all the 
tyrannical measures against the colonies, and 
looked upon the king as their natural pro- 
tector. It was a feeling common among 
Americans who wished to preserve their alle- 
giance to the empire while protesting against 
the authority of the laws. Even as late as 
1771 he could write these words about 
George III : " I can scarcely conceive a 
king of better dispositions, of more exem- 
plary virtues, or more truly desirous of pro- 
moting the welfare of his subjects." When 
at last the bigoted character of that sover- 



94 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

eign was fully revealed to him, he despaired 
utterly of reconciliation with the mother 
country. 

Franklin's labors may well be portrayed 
in two dramatic incidents : his examination 
before Parliament in 1766, and the so-called 
Privy Council outrage in 1774. 

After the passage of the Stamp Act, 
Franklin wrote to a friend : " Depend upon 
it, my good neighbor, I took every step in my 
power to prevent the passing of the Stamp 
Act. Nobody could be more concerned and 
interested than myself to oppose it sincerely 
and heartily. . . . We might as well have 
hindered the sun's setting. That we coidd 
not do. But since it is down, my friend, 
and it may be long before it rises again, let 
us make as good a night of it as we can. 
We can still light candles. Frugality and 
industry will go a great way towards indem- 
nifying us. Idleness and pride tax with a 
heavier hand than kings and parliaments. 
If we can get rid of the former, we may 
easily bear the latter." But Franklin's 
philosophical habit of accepting the inevi- 



MISSIONS TO ENGLAND 95 

table, — a habit which for a time brought 
him the hostility of such strenuous patriots 
as the Adamses, — did not prevent him from 
doing all in his power to further the repeal 
of that act when the matter was again taken 
up by Parliament. Nor did America lack 
friends in Parliament itself, and these gen- 
tlemen now arranged that Franklin should 
give testimony before the bar of the House. 

In the examination which followed, Frank- 
lin showed the fullness of his knowledge and 
the keenness of his wit better perhaps than 
in any other act of his life. It is impossible to 
give at length the replies with which he aided 
the friends of repeal and baffled its foes ; 
but a few of his answers may indicate the 
nature of aU. 

Q. " What was the temper of America 
towards Great Britian before the year 
1763?" 

A. " The best in the world. They sub- 
mitted willingly to the government of the 
Crown, and paid in their courts obedience 
to acts of Parliament. . . . They had not 
only a respect, but an affection for Great 



96 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

Britain ; for its laws, its customs, and man- 
ners ; and even a fondness for its fashions, 
that greatly increased the commerce. Na- 
tives of Britain were always treated with 
particular regard; to be an Old England 
man was, of itself, a character of some re- 
spect, and gave a kind of rank among us." 

Q, " What is their temper now ? " 

A. " Oh, very much altered." 

Q. " How would the Americans receive a 
future tax, imposed on the same principle as 
the Stamp Act ? " 

A. "Just as they do the Stamp Act; 
tJiey would not 'pay it^ 

Q. " Would the colonists prefer to forego 
the collection of debts by legal process rather 
than use stamped paper ? " 

A, " I can only judge what other people 
will think and how they will act by what I 
feel within myself. I have a great many 
debts due to me in America, and I had 
rather they should remain unrecoverable by 
any law than submit to the Stamp Act. 
They will be debts of honor." 

The examination was a complete success ; 



MISSIONS TO ENGLAND 97 

not even the Tories could object to it, and 
to Burke it seemed like the examination of 
a master by a parcel of schoolboys. A few 
days later the repeal was carried. 

But the relief was only temporary, and 
Parliament soon returned to its high-handed 
measures of repression. One day in the 
midst of the contest Franklin was talking 
with a friendly member of Parliament and 
inveighing against the violence of the govern- 
ment towards Boston. The Englishman re- 
plied that these measures of repression did 
not originate in England, and to prove his 
assertion placed in Franklin's hands a packet 
of letters written by Hutchinson, governor 
of Massachusetts, and others to a member 
of Parliament with the intention of reaching 
the ears of Lord Grenville. These letters, 
written by native-born Americans, advised 
the quartering of troops on Boston, advo- 
cated the making of judges and governors 
dependent on England for their salaries, and 
were full of such sentiments as that " there 
must be an abridgment of what are called 
English liberties." Franklin by permission 



98 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

sent tliem to Boston, wliere tliey naturally 
raised a furor of indignation. A petition 
was immediately sent over to have Governor 
Hutchinson removed from office, but for a 
while government took no action. After a 
time the letters got into the London news- 
papers with the most deplorable result. 
One Thomas Whately, brother of the gentle- 
man to whom they had been addressed, was 
accused of purloining the letters and send- 
ing them to America. This caused a duel, 
and a second duel was about to be fought 
when Franklin published a note in the 
" Public Advertiser " avowing that the letters 
had not passed through Mr. Whately's hands, 
that he himself was responsible for sending 
them to Boston, and that no blame could be 
attached to the action as the letters were 
really of a public nature. The Tories now 
saw their opportunity to attack Franklin. 
The petition for removing Hutchinson was 
taken up by the Committee for Plantation 
Affairs, and Franklin was summoned to 
appear before them. Wedderburn, the 
king's solicitor-general, was there to speak 



MISSIONS TO ENGLAND 99 

for Hutchinson, and Franklin, having no 
counsel, had the proceedings delayed for 
three weeks. 

On the appointed day the Council met in 
a building called the Cockpit, and Franklin 
appeared before them. The room was fur- 
nished with a long table down the middle, at 
which the lords sat. At one end of the 
room was a fireplace, and in a recess at one 
side of the chimney Franklin stood during 
the whole meeting. His advocates spoke, 
but without much effect, and the defense of 
Hutchinson was then taken up by Wedder- 
burn. But instead of arguing the point at 
issue, Wedderburn made it the occasion for 
delivering, much to the delight of the Tory 
lords present, a long and utterly unjustified 
tirade against Franklin. With thunderous 
voice and violent beating of his fist on the 
cushion before him, he denounced Frank- 
lin as the " prime mover of this whole con- 
trivance against his majesty's two gover- 
nors." Although the letters had been given 
to Franklin for the express purpose of hav- 
ing them conveyed to America, Wedder- 

LofC, 



100 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

burn accused him of base treachery ; turn- 
ing to the committee he said : " I hope, my 
Lords, you will mark and brand the man, 
for the honor of this country, of Europe, 
and of mankind. Private correspondence 
has hitherto been held sacred, in times of 
the greatest party rage, not only in pohtics 
but religion." " He has forfeited all the 
respect of societies and of men. Into what 
companies will he hereafter go with an un- 
embarrassed face, or the honest intrepidity 
of virtue ? Men will watch him with a 
jealous eye ; they will hide their papers 
from him, and lock up their escritoirs. He 
will henceforth esteem it a libel to be called 
a man of letters ; homo trium litterarum 
(i. Q.^fur^ thief) ! " " But he not only took 
away the letters from one brother ; but kept 
himself concealed till he nearly occasioned 
the murder of the other. It is impossible 
to read his account, expressive of the coolest 
and most deliberate malice, without horror." 
" Amidst these tragical events, of one person 
nearly murdered, of another answerable for 
the issue, of a worthy governor hurt in his 



MISSIONS TO ENGLAND 101 

dearest interests, the fate of America in sus- 
pense ; here is a man, who, with the utmost 
insensibility of remorse, stands up and avows 
himseK the author of all. I can compare it 
only to Zanga, in Dr. Young's " Kevenge ; " — 

" ' Know then 't was — I ; 

I forged the letter, I disposed the picture ; 
I hated, I despised, and I destroy.' 

I ask, my Lords, whether the revengeful 
temper attributed, by poetic fiction only, to 
the bloody African is not surpassed by the 
coolness and apathy of the wily Ameri- 
can?" 

The picture of Franklin standing unmoved 
under this torrent of abuse is,. I think, the 
most dramatic incident of his life. It was 
a victory of glorious endurance ; it was the 
crown of unmerited infamy which was needed 
to give depth of interest to his successful 
career. An eyewitness thus described the 
scene : " Dr. Franklin's face was directed 
towards me, and I had a full, uninterrupted 
view of it, and his person, during the whole 
time in which Mr. Wedderburn spoke. 
The Doctor was dressed in a full dress suit 



102 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

of spotted Mancliester velvet, and stood con- 
sjncuously erect without tliG smallest move- 
ment of any part of his body. The muscles 
of his face had been previously composed, 
so as to afford a placid, tranquil expression 
of countenance, and he did not suffer the 
slightest alteration of it to appear during 
the continuance of the speech, in which he 
was so harshly and improperly treated. In 
short, to quote the words which he employed 
concerning himself on another occasion, he 
kept his ' countenance as immovable as if 
his features had been made of ivoocL^ " 

Fortunately, to sustain him in these trials, 
Franklin had a cheerful home and the 
society of the best men in England. He 
was living at the old house on Craven Street, 
where Mrs. Stevenson did all in her power 
to make him forget that he was an exile. 
Indeed, were it not that Mrs. Franldin had 
an unconquerable dread of crossing the 
water, it is quite possible that our philoso- 
pher might have carried his family to Eng- 
land and lived permanently among his new 
friends ; and in estimating the services of 



MISSIONS TO ENGLAND- 103 

Fraiiklin to America we should never forget 
to give clue credit to his loyal wife v>^ho 
stayed quietly at home, managing his affairs 
for him in Philadelphia and keeping warm 
his attachment for his adopted city. Be- 
sides the eminent statesmen, such as Pitt 
and Burke, with whom Franklin's business 
brought him naturally in contact, he asso- 
ciated much with liberal clergymen, — with 
Priestley particularly, the discoverer of 
oxygen, and with the family of the good 
Bishop of St. Asaph's, at whose house he 
had almost a second home. To one of the 
bishop's daughters he sent the inimitable 
epitaph on the squirrel Mungo which he had 
given her as a present from America. The 
influence for good is almost incalculable 
which Franklin thus exercised by the noble 
type of American character he displayed to 
the liberal party in England. 

Nor did he ever lose an opportunity to 
accomphsh what he could with the pen. At 
one time, to lay bare the suicidal policy of 
the government, he published in a news- 
paper a satirical squib quite in the vein of 



104 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

Dean Swift, entitled " Kules for reducing a 
Great Empire to a Small One." The open- 
ing sentences were as follows : " An ancient 
sage valued himself upon this, that, though 
he coidd not fiddle, he knew how to make a 
great city of a little one. The science that 
I, a modern simpleton, am about to com- 
municate, is the very reverse ; " and with 
this introduction the author proceeds to give 
a detailed account of the treatment of the 
colonies by Parliament. 

In another paper Franklin reduced cer- 
tain arguments of the ministry to the absurd. 
This was a pretended " Edict of the King of 
Prussia," in which Frederick was supposed 
to announce the same sovereignty over Eng- 
land, which had been originally settled by 
Germans, as Parliament now claimed over 
America. Speaking of these two papers 
Franklin says, in a letter to his son : " I 
sent you one of the first, but could not get 
enough of the second to spare you one, 
though my clerk went the next morning to 
the printer's, and wherever they were sold. 
... I am not suspected as the author, except 



MISSIONS TO ENGLAND 105 

by one or two friends ; and have heard the 
latter spoken of in the highest terms, as 
the keenest and severest piece that has ap- 
peared here a long time. Lord Mansfield, 
I hear, said of it, that it was very able 
and very artful indeed ; and would do mis- 
chief by giving here a bad impression of the 
measures of government ; and in the colonies, 
by encouraging them in their contumacy. . . . 
What made it the more noticed here was, 
that people in reading it were, as the phrase 
is, taken in, till they had got half through 
it, and imagined it a real edict, to which mis- 
take I suppose the King of Prussia's char- 
acter must have contributed. I was down 
at Lord Le Despencer's, when the post 
brought that day's papers. Mr. Whitehead 
was there, too (Paul Whitehead, the author 
of " Manners "), who runs early through all 
the papers, and tells the company what he 
finds remarkable. He had them in another 
room, and we were chatting in the break- 
fast parlor, when he came running in to us, 
out of breath, with the paper in his hand. 
' Here ! ' says he, ' here 's news for ye ! 



lOG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

Here 's the King of Prussia, claiming a 
right to this kingdom ! ' All stared, and I 
as much as anybody; and he went on to 
read it. When he had read two or three 
paragraphs, a gentleman present said, 
' Damn his impudence, I dare say we shall 
hear by next post, that he is upon his march 
with one hundred thousand men to back this.' 
Whitehead, who is very shrewd, soon after 
began to smoke it, and looking in my face, 
said, ' 1 1] be hanged if this is not some of 
your American jokes upon us.' The read- 
ing went on, and ended with abundance of 
laughing, and a general verdict that it was 
a fair hit." 

After the Privy Council outrage there 
was very little for Franklin to do. Lord 
Chatham consulted with him before intro- 
ducing in Parliament a liberal bill for con- 
ciliating the colonies, and Franklin himself 
was present in the House of Lords when 
the old statesman, despite the protests of 
his gout, plead for fairer measures. It may 
very well be that if these troubles had oc- 
curred in Chatham's vigorous days he might 



MISSIONS TO ENGLAND 107 

have been able to preserve the integrity 
of the empire. But now he was crippled 
by the gout and debarred from active life ; 
and in the interesting " Dialogue between 
Franklin and the Gout" the philosopher 
might have retorted upon that exacting 
lady the mischief she had done his people 
by laming Pitt. Again Franldin had to 
stand the bitter denunciation of the Tories, 
while Lord Sandwich held him up as " one 
of the bitterest and most mischievous ene- 
mies this country had ever known ; " but he 
also had the satisfaction of hearing a noble 
eulogy of his character pronounced by the 
great Chatham. 

Then, after a good deal of secret negotiation 
with Lord Howe, Franklin reluctantly aban- 
doned the situation and turned homeward. 
His last day in London was passed with Dr. 
Priestley, who has left an interesting record 
of their conversation. He says of Franldin 
that " the unity of the British empire in all 
its parts was a favorite idea of his. He used 
to compare it to a beautiful china vase, which, 
if ever broken, could never be put together 



108 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

again ; and so great an admirer was he of 
the British constitution that he said he saw 
no inconvenience from its being extended 
over a great part of the globe. With these 
sentiments he left England." 



VI 



MEMBER OF CONGRESS AND ENVOY TO 
FRANCE 

Franklin reached Philadelpliia May 5, 
1775 ; and what a home-coming it was ! 
His wife had died, and he was now to live 
with his daughter Mrs. Bache. The battle 
of Lexington had been fought while he was 
at sea, and the whole country was in a fer- 
ment of excitement. It was in regard to this 
battle, it may be remembered, that he uttered 
one of his famous witticisms. To a critic 
who accused the Americans of cowardice for 
firing from behind stone walls, he replied : 
" I beg to inquire if those same walls had 
not two sides to them ?" 

He received the most honorable welcome 
home, and on the very morning after his 
arrival was unanimously chosen one of the 
Pennsylvania delegates to the Continental 
Congress about to meet in Philadelphia. 



no BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

Our philosopher, now seventy years old, 
had come home to rest, but found himseK 
instead in the very vortex of public affairs. 
He was a member of the Pennsylvania 
Committee of Safety and a burgess in the 
Assembly, but later he gave himself entirely 
to Cono'ress. Afterwards when in Paris he 
declared that he used to work twelve hours 
out of the twenty-four on public business. 
His part in Congress was one of conciliation 
between conflicting interests, — a role he was 
admirably adapted to fill. Very early he 
proj^osed, as he had done at Albany, a union 
of the thirteen colonies, but the times were 
not yet ripe for such a measure. 

Of the great act of this Congress, the 
Declaration of Independence, Franklin's 
share was small, as might be inferred from 
the nature of the man. He did indeed serve 
with Jefferson and three others on the com- 
mittee appointed to draft this document, but, 
as every one knows, the actual writing of 
the Declaration was the work of Jefferson. 
Franldin is chiefly remembered for one or 
two witticisms in connection with the affair. 



MEMBER OF CONGRESS 111 

" We must be unanimous," said Hancock, 
when it came to signing the document, " there 
must be no pulling different ways ; we must 
all hang together." " Yes," replied Franklin, 
" we must, indeed, all hang together, or, 
most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." 
Over Franklin's manifold occupations we 
may now pass rapidly, for, though he was 
connected with almost every prominent trans- 
action of the times, yet he was not a true 
leader of the revolutionary movement. He 
was easily the most illustrious man in Amer- 
ica, and, since the death of Jonathan Ed- 
wards, the most intellectual; but his mind 
was inquisitive and contemplative rather than 
aggressive, and rougher hands were now 
needed at the helm. He acted as postmaster 
for the colonies, and served on many com- 
mittees. So, for instance, he went with John 
Adams and Edward Rutledge to confer with 
Lord Howe on Staten Island. The embassy, 
however, came to nothing, as Lord Howe 
utterly refused to treat with them as envoys 
of a Congress whose existence he could not 
acknowledge. It was too late for negotia- 



112 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

tions. And now we are to see Franldin in 
a new part. 

Of the great leaders of the Revolution 
each had his peculiar task. There was Sam- 
uel Adams in Boston, the herald of division 
and battle, whose office it was to make clear 
the mind of the country and to stir up in 
the people the proper enthusiasm ; there 
was Thomas Jefferson, imbued with French 
eighteenth-century notions of the rights of 
man, incapable perhaps of distinguishing be- 
tween theory and fact, but for that very 
reason suited to formulate the national De- 
claration of Independence, a document not 
rigorously true in philosophy but inimitable 
as the battle cry of freedom and progress ; 
there was Washington, whose military genius, 
indomitable will, and noble solidity of char- 
acter were able to carry the war through to 
the end ; and there was Franklin, too cool- 
headed ever to have inflamed the hearts of 
the people with the inspiration of hope and 
revenge, incapable of uttering political plati- 
tudes which could express tersely the national 
feeling, a lover of peace and without the grim 



MEMBER OF CONGRESS 113 

determination of a soldier, but still able in 
his own way to serve tbe state more effectu- 
ally perhaps than any other man except the 
great Captain himself. It was absolutely 
necessary, both for actual help in money and 
arms and for moral support, that the young 
nation should receive recognition abroad. 
To win this recognition was just the task of 
Frankhn. Already he was known personally 
to many of the leading spirits of England 
and the Continent. The respect and friend- 
ship felt for him by Burke, Fox, Lord Shel- 
burne. Lord Rockingham, did much to aug- 
ment the power of the opposition in England, 
and on the Continent the high reputation of 
Franklin as a philosopher and statesman 
contributed largely to the general confidence 
in the ultimate success of the rebellion. 

The first really important communication 
from Europe came to Congress through Dr. 
Dubourg, of Paris, who wrote a long letter 
to Franklin, addressing him as " My dear 
Master," and assuring him of the sympathies 
of France. Congress hereupon appointed 
Franklins Silas Deane, and Arthur Lee com- 



114 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

missioners to Paris, the two last being al- 
ready in Europe. 

Before departing Franklin got together 
what money he could, " between three and 
four thousand pounds," and lent it to Con- 
gress ; he then sailed with his two grandsons, 
William Temple Franklin and Benjamin 
Franklin Bache, reaching Paris December 
21, 1776. Considering the dangers and 
hardships of the voyage this was no light 
undertaking for a man of his age, and he 
was in fact physically exhausted when he 
arrived on the other side. 

Franklin came now to reap the fruits of 
a long and well spent life. His personal 
fame aided him in a land where philosophers 
had become the fashion of the day, and as 
the representative of a people struggling for 
liberty he was peculiarly dear to the French, 
who were themselves speculating on such 
matters and preparing for their own revolu- 
tion. It is of course easy to exaggerate the 
influence of sentiment in the case. France 
was glad to encourage America because the 
loss of the colonies would weaken the British 



ENVOY TO FRANCE 115 

Emj)ire, and tbat was natural ; but it is, I 
tbink, a mistake not to acknowledge tbe 
generous sentiments of tbe people and even 
of tbe grandees of tbe land. Voltaire and 
Rousseau bad not been preacbing in vain ; 
tbe American Declaration of Independence 
was quite in tbe drift of Frencb political 
ideas. But to awaken trust in a people wbo 
dwelt in a far-off wilderness and wbo were 
commonly esteemed little better tban savages, 
tbe presence of sucb a man as Franklin was 
of incalculable value. 

After a brief interval M. de Cbaumont, 
one of tbe wealtby Frencbmen of tbe day, 
offered Franklin rooms at Passy in bis Hotel 
de Valentinois, and tbere our pbilosopber 
fixed bis abode, living in some style, and 
spending perbaps about tbirteen tbousand 
dollars a year. His popularity was immediate 
and almost unexampled. Tbe great people 
of France — pbilosopbers, statesmen, titled 
noblemen, and fine ladies — tbougbt it an 
bonor to receive tbe famous American ; and 
it is said tbat so great was bis fame among 
tbe common people tbat tbe sbopkeepers 



116 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

would run to their doors to see him pass 
down the street. Innumerable pictures were 
drawn and medallions cut of his figure, until, 
as he wrote, his countenance was made " as 
well known as that of the moon, so that he 
durst not do anything that would oblige him 
to run away, as his phiz would discover him 
wherever he should venture to show it." 
Parton quotes this interesting account of 
the commissioners from the Memoirs of 
Count Sigur : " Nothing could be more strik- 
ing than . . . the almost rustic apparel, the 
plain but firm demeanor, the free and direct 
language, of the envoys, whose antique sim- 
plicity of dress and appearance seemed to 
have introduced within our walls, in the 
midst of the effeminate and servile refine- 
ment of the eighteenth century, some sages 
contemporary with Plato, or republicans of 
the age of Cato and of Fabius. This unex- 
pected apparition produced upon us a greater 
effect in consequence of its novelty, and of 
its occurring precisely at the period when 
literature and philosophy had circulated 
amongst us an unusual desire for reforms, 



ENVOY TO FRANCE 117 

a disposition to encourage innovations, and 
the seeds of an ardent attachment to lib- 
erty." 

But life was not all roseate for Franklin ; 
he and the other envoys had plenty of work 
to do. Among other things an endless num- 
ber of foreign officers applied to Franklin 
for commissions in the American army. 
Some of these applicants — such as Lafayette 
and Steuben — were heartily welcome, and 
really aided the cause ; but he was beset by 
innumerable others who would have been 
merely a burden on the army. For men of 
this stamp he drew up and actually used 
more than once a blank recommendation be- 
ginning with these ominous words ; " The 
bearer of this, who is going to America, 
presses me to give him a letter of recom- 
mendation, though I know nothing of him, 
not even his name. This may seem extraor- 
dinary, but I assure you it is not uncom- 
mon here," etc. He was also kept busy 
managing the affairs of the small but active 
navy, which was largely fitted out in France, 
and which brought most of its prizes into 



118 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

Frencli ports. But of all liis labors the 
most difficult and tlie most important was 
the raising of money for Congress. Into 
the details of this exasperating task we can- 
not here enter. Congress was not wise, and 
its necessities were desperate, and, despite 
the generosity of the French court, he had 
often to employ extreme measures to borrow 
money on doubtful security or none at all. 

To excite interest in favor of the colonies 
Franklin wrote several papers, whose prac- 
tical ideas of political liberty were not with- 
out effect in guiding the French people on to 
their own revolution. Even the wit of " the 
old fox," as he was called in England, ap- 
pealed strongly to that nation of esprit. So, 
for instance, when asked if a certain story 
of American defeat told by Lord Stormont, 
the British ambassador, was a truth, he an- 
swered : " No, monsieur, it is not a truth ; 
it is only a Stormont." And straightway 
" a stormont " became the polite word for a 
lie. Again, when told that Howe had taken 
Philadelphia he retorted : "I beg your par- 
don, sir, Philadelphia has taken Howe." 



ENVOY TO FRANCE 119 

But though Franklin could maintain his 
philosophic calm, and could even joke in the 
presence of disaster, yet the strain on his 
nerves was tremendous. I believe that only 
once in his life was he betrayed into mani- 
festing a strong emotion. Mr. Austin, a 
messenger from Boston, is coming with im- 
portant news. All the American commis- 
sioners, together with Beaumarchais, are at 
Passy waiting his arrival. His chaise is 
heard in the court, and they go out to meet 
him. But before he even alights Franklin 
cries out, " Sir, is Philadelphia taken ? " 
"Yes, sir," says Austin. It seemed then 
that all was over. Without a word Frank- 
lin clasped his hands and turned toward the 
house. " But, sir, " said Austin, " I have 
greater news than that. General Bur- 

GOYNE AND HIS WHOLE ARMY ARE PRIS- 
ONERS OF WAR ! " " The news," as one of 
the party afterwards declared, " was like a 
sovereign cordial to the dying." How deep 
the impression upon Franklin was we may 
judge from his gratitude to the messenger. 
Mr. Austin relates that often he " would 



120 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

break from one of tliose musings in which 
it was his habit to indulge, and clasping his 
hands together, exclaim. Oh, Mr. Austin, 
you brought us glorious news ! ' " 

It was indeed glorious news. The result 
in France was instantaneous and immense. 
Franklin and his companions had long wished 
the court to acknowledge publicly the inde- 
pendence of the United States and to make 
a treaty of commerce with them. The news 
of Burgoyne's surrender reached Paris on 
the 4th of December, 1777 ; the desired 
treaty was actually signed on the 6th of 
February following. Dr. Bancroft, who was 
present when both parties signed the docu- 
ment, tells us that Franklin on that occasion 
wore the old suit of Manchester velvet which 
he had worn on the day of his outrage in the 
Privy Council, and which had been long 
laid aside. It was apparently a bit of quaint 
and secret revenge in which the philosopher 
indulged himself. But when Dr. Bancroft 
intimated to Franklin his suspicions in the 
matter, the philosoj)her only smiled, and said 
nothing. 



ENVOY TO FRANCE 121 

Several weeks later the new treaty was to 
receive formal recognition, and the Ameri- 
can commissioners were to be presented 
to Louis XVI in their public capacity. 
Franklin intended to wear the regular court 
costume at the presentation, but was balked 
of his desire. The costume did not come in 
time ; and when the perruquier brought his 
wig it refused to sit on the Doctor's head. 
Franldin suggested that the wig might be 
too small. " Monsieur, it is impossible," 
cried the perruquier, and then, dashing the 
wig to the floor, exclaimed, " No, Monsieur ! 
— it is not the wig which is too smaU. ; it 
is your head which is too large." At any 
rate the wig could not be worn, and Frank- 
lin appeared in his own gray hair, dressed in 
black velvet, with white silk stockings, spec- 
tacles on nose, and no sword at his side. 
The king received the envoys courteously, 
saying : " Gentlemen, I wish the Congress 
to be assured of my friendship. I beg leave 
also to observe that I am e:jcceedingly satis- 
fied in particular with your own conduct 
during your residence in my kingdom ; " 



122 BENJAMIN FKANKLIN 

and with these words walked out of the 
apartment. Immediately Lord Stormont, 
the British ambassador, left Paris ; and a 
few days later M. Gerard, the first minis- 
ter of France to this comitry, sailed for 
America. 

Franklin had met the king ; he had noV 
to meet a greater and more famous man 
than Louis, — the only man living whose 
fame was equal to his own. Voltaire, eighty- 
four years old, feeble in body but with intel- 
lect unconquered, had just come to Paris 
after his long exile to hear the plaudits of 
his countrymen, and to die. The American 
envoys asked permission to wait upon the 
great man, and were received by Voltaire 
lying on his couch. He quoted a few lines 
from Thomson's " Ode to Liberty," and then 
began to talk with Franklin in English ; but 
his niece, not understanding that language, 
begged them to speak in French. Where- 
upon Voltaire replied : "I beg your pardon. 
I have for a moment yielded to the vanity of 
showing that I can speak in the language of 
a Franklin." When Dr. Franldin presented 



ENVOY TO FRANCE 123 

his grandson, the old philosopher pronounced 
over his head only these words : " God and 
Liberty ! " All who were present shed 
tears. 

John Adams tells the story of a more 
public meeting between the two men at the 
Academy of Sciences : " Voltaire and Frank- 
lin were both present, and there presently 
arose a general cry that M. Voltaire and 
M. Franklin should be introduced to each 
other. This was done, and they bowed and 
spoke to each other. This was no satisfac- 
tion ; there must be something more. Nei- 
ther of our philosophers seemed to divine 
what was wished or expected. They, how- 
ever, took each other by the hand ; but this 
was not enough. The clamor continued 
until the exclamation came out, ' II faut 
s'embrasser a la Fran9aise ! ' ^ The two aged 
actors upon this great theatre of philosophy 
and frivolity then embraced each other by 
hugging one another in their arms and kiss- 
ing each other's cheeks, and then the tumult 
subsided. And the cry immediately spread 

1 They must embrace like Frenchmen. 



124 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

tlirouglioiit the kingdom, and I suj)pose over 
all Europe, ' Qii'il etait cliarmant de voir 
embrasser Solon et Sopliocle ! ' " i 

The mention of John Adams recalls us to 
the most disagreeable part of Frankhn's ex- 
perience. During all his sojourn in France 
he was subject to continual and annoying 
interference from his colleagues. Before his 
arrival in Paris, Silas Deane had entered 
for Congress into semi-commercial relations 
with the French government through the 
eccentric and industrious Beaumarchais. 
Franklin was content to leave these affairs 
to him, and did not at the time even know 
their real nature. But with Arthur Lee it 
was different. Of all characters in American 
history Lee is almost the hardest to endure. 
He was patriotic, and in a way honest, but 
meddlesome, suspicious, vain, and quarrel- 
some to an incredible degree. He iumaedi- 
ately made up his mind that Deane was pecu- 
lating, and never ceased writing accusatory 
letters until Congress recalled the unfortu- 

1 How cliarming it was to see Solon and Sophocles 
embrace. 



ENVOY TO FRANCE 125 

nate envoy. All this time he was also acting 
toward Franklin in a manner wMcli can 
only be described as insane. He fumed at 
Franldin's ea.sy way of conducting business ; 
his vanity suffered indescribable tortures at 
every mark of respect paid to his distin- 
guished colleague ; he suspected him of trea- 
son and every other crime ; and with his 
partisans (whose names we need not here 
mention) he wrote voluble letters of incrim- 
ination to Congress. When Silas Deane 
was recalled, John Adams was sent over to 
take his place, and for a while Franklin re- 
ceived support from his new colleague, — for 
Adams, with all his faults, was at least 
single-hearted in his patriotism. But their 
characters were too widely different for them 
to work easily together in harness. Adams's 
vanity was almost as great as Arthur Lee's. 
The homage paid to Franklin drove him 
almost into a frenzy of rage, both because 
he thought himself overlooked and because 
such homage savored of aristocracy. In 
Franklin's catalogue of the virtues there were 
two which he could not claim to have at- 



126 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

tained, — chastity and orderliness ; and these 
two weaknesses now rose to exact their pen- 
alty. Adams could not believe that a man 
who had been lax with women could be 
honest in anything else ; Adams was the 
spirit of petty orderliness, and Franldin's 
easy ways seemed to him the destruction of 
all business. At last Congress came to the 
rescue, and for once acted sensibly: Lee 
and Adams were recalled, and Franklin was 
left as sole plenipotentiary in Paris. 

With other Americans Franklin's rela- 
tionship was of a pleasanter sort. To the 
American navy and privateers Franklin was 
the American government ; and, though he 
was often annoyed by the unreasonable con- 
duct of importunate captains, yet he also 
shared in the glory of their deeds. John 
Paul Jones was one of the many forced to 
endure Arthur Lee's impertinences, and had 
it not been for Franklin's aid and friend- 
shij) our navy would have lost the honor of 
that name. At one time Paul Jones was in 
Paris with no ship to connnand, and though 
he tried every channel to obtain a vessel 



ENVOY TO FRANCE 127 

from the French court, was always put off. 
At last, as he was reading a French transla- 
tion of Poor Richard's Almanac, his eye was 
struck by this sentence : " If you would 
have your business done, go ; if not, send." 
Without delay he went himself to Versailles, 
and obtained an order to purchase an old 
ship of forty guns. This good vessel he 
christened Le Bon Homme Richard, which 
is French for Poor Richard, and the story 
of how she beat the Serapis need not here 
be retold. 

Through all these difficulties in France, as 
before in England, Franklin found consola- 
tion and amusement in the intellectual society 
of a great capital. And what a society this 
was ! The very list of names of Franklin's 
friends is an inspiration. With the scientists 
of the day he continued to discuss philo- 
sophic questions ; and with the great ladies 
of society he could find relaxation from his 
graver cares. Chess still absorbed more of 
his time than his conscience approved, and 
there are several well known stories of him 
in connection with that game. Once when 



128 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

playing with the old Duchess of Bourbon, the 
lady happened to put her king into prize, 
and the Doctor took it. " Ah," says she, 
" we do not take kings so." " We do in 
America," said the Doctor; and this plea- 
sant joke he seems to have repeated several 
times in different forms. To Madame Brillon, 
a wealthy and amiable lady of the neighbor- 
hood, he wrote a nmnber of those clever 
sketches which might well find a place in 
the " Spectator," — such as The Ephemera, 
The Petition of the Left Hand, The Whistle, 
The Dialogue between Franldin and the 
Gout, and others almost as well known. 

One of his best friends was Madame Hel- 
vetius, widow of the celebrated philosopher, 
and it was to her he wrote his famous dream 
ending with the words, " Let us avenge 
ourselves." We must at least find space 
for Mrs. Adams's curious account of that 
lady : " She entered the room with a care- 
less, jaunty air ; upon seeing ladies who 
were strangers to her, she bawled out, ' Ah ! 
mon Dieu, where is Franldin ? Why did 
you not tell me there were ladies here ? ' 



ENVOY TO FRANCE 129 

You must suppose her speaking all this in 
French. ' How I look ! ' said she, taking 
hold of a chemise made of tiffany, which 
she had on over a blue lute-string, and 
which looked as much upon the decay as her 
beauty, for she was once a handsome wo- 
man ; her hair was frizzled ; over it she had 
a small straw hat, with a dirty gauze half- 
handkerchief round it, and a bit of dirtier 
gauze than ever my maid wore was bowed on 
behmd. She had a black gauze scarf thrown 
over her shoulders. She ran out of the 
room ; when she returned, the Doctor en- 
tered at one door, she at the other ; upon 
which she ran forward to him, caught him 
by the hand, ' Helas ! Franklin ; ' then 
gave him a double kiss, one upon each cheek, 
and another upon his forehead. When we 
went into the room to dine, she was placed 
between the Doctor and Mr. Adams. She 
carried the chief of the conversation at din- 
ner, frequently locking her hand into the 
Doctor's, and sometimes spreading her arms 
upon the backs of both the gentlemen's 
chairs, then throwing her arm carelessly 
upon the Doctor's neck." 



130 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

Another house to which Franklin was 
welcome was that of the Countess d'Houdetot 
celebrated for her part in the life of Rous- 
seau. It was at her chateau that Franklin 
had to undergo the ordeal of such a glorifi- 
cation as must have tried his philosophic 
nerves to the uttermost. The chronicler of 
the occasion declares that " the venerable 
sage, with his gray hair flowing down upon 
his shoulders, his staff in hand, the specta- 
cles of wisdom on his nose, was the perfect 
picture of true philosophy and virtue." But 
the " sage " must have found his virtue a 
burden on that day. He was escorted 
through the grounds ; wine was poured out 
freely ; music was played, and the company 
in turn celebrated the guest in stanzas which 
were none the less fulsome because they were 
true. The ceremony closed with the plant- 
ing of a Virginia locust by the Doctor. 

The surrender of Burgoyne in 1777 had 
brought about the treaty with France ; the 
surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, four 
years later, was the beginning of peace 
and the cause of the treaty with England. 



ENVOY TO FRANCE 131 

What effect the news of Cornwallis's defeat 
had in England; how Lord North, the 
Prime Minister, received the message " as 
he would have taken a ball in his breast,'* 
walking wildly up and down the room, toss- 
ing his arms, and crying out, " Oh God ! 
it is all over ! it is all over ! " — all this is 
known to everybody. 

The diplomacy which now passed be- 
tween the belligerent parties is a most 
complicated chapter of history. Franklin, 
Jay, and Adams were appointed by Congress 
to treat with England concerning peace, 
with instructions to consult the French 
government in every measure. The first 
difficulty was one of form. England was 
ready to sign a treaty of peace and ac- 
knowledge the independence of the colo- 
nies ; but the envoy sent to Paris for this 
purpose was empowered to treat only with 
commissioners of the " colonies or planta- 
tions," and Jay and Adams felt incensed 
that the United States did not receive re- 
cognition by name. Franklin regarded the 
matter as a mere formality and was eager 



132 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

to push on the proceedings ; but his colleagues 
were obdurate, and after some delay Eng- 
land made the required recognition. Three 
important points had then to be settled: 

1. Whether the Americans should be al- 
lowed to fish on the New Foundland banks ; 

2. Whether the western boundary should 
extend to the Mississippi River ; 3. Whether 
the United States government should reim- 
burse the losses of the Tories. 

Adams, who as a Bostonian understood the 
importance of the first measure, insisted stub- 
bornly that England should cede this point, 
and finally won the day. That the United 
States were not confined to a strip of land 
along the seacoast was chiefly due to Jay. 
And here a new complication came in. Jay 
had from the first suspected that France 
was playing a double game, and convincing 
evidence of duplicity now fell into his hands. 
To obtain concessions for herseK, France 
was secretly encouraging England to refuse 
the American claims on the New Foundland 
fishing banks and on the territory lying be- 
tween the Alleghanies and the Mississippi. 



ENVOY TO FRANCE 133 

Jay thereupon insisted that the American 
envoys should treat secretly with England 
without consulting the French court, and 
Adams sided with him. Franklin was at first 
much averse to this mode of procedure, both 
because Congress had distinctly commanded 
them to act in concert with Versailles, and 
because he could not believe in the treachery 
of his French friends. When, however, 
Jay laid the matter clearly before him he 
gave up the point, and the negotiations pro- 
ceeded. England acknowledged the Amer- 
ican right to the western territory, but was 
more obstinate in regard to the Tory indemni- 
fication. Franklin was willing to grant this if 
England in return would cede Canada to the 
American union, and for a time the question 
was debated in this form. Finally a com- 
promise was adopted, Congress promising to 
recommend to the state legislatures " to re- 
store the estates, rights, and properties of 
real British subjects," — which was of course 
a concession in words only, as Congress had 
no authority to enforce such a recommenda- 
tion. The preliminary treaty between Eng- 



ISi BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

land and America was signed November 
30, 1782, and Franklin had at once to ap- 
pease the wrath of the French government 
which felt it had been duped. With con- 
summate skill he accomplished this task, and 
all the vexing questions at issue were settled 
by the signing, on September 3, 1783, of 
separate definitive treaties between the three 
hostile powers. 

Frankhn's great work was done. He had 
before this urged Congress to release him 
from his heavy duties, and at last — in 1785, 
after he had assisted in making treaties with 
the other powers of Europe — his resigna- 
tion was accepted, and he was free to return 
home. Thomas Jefferson came over to Paris 
as plenipotentiary in his stead. When asked 
if he replaced Dr. Franklin, Jefferson used 
to reply : "I succeed. No one can replace 
him." 

Franklin returned to Philadelphia laden 
with years and honors ; yet still his country 
could not let him repose. For three succes- 
sive years he was elected President of Penn- 
sylvania ; but the labors entailed were not 



ENVOY TO FRANCE 135 

severe, and the old man found time for 
amusement and quiet study. We have a 
beautiful picture of his life at home with his 
daughter and her family in one of his letters 
of the time : " The companions of my youth 
are indeed almost all departed; but I find 
an agreeable society among their children 
and grandchildren. I have public business 
enough to preserve me from ennui, and 
private amusement besides in conversation, 
books, my garden, and cribbage. Consider- 
ing our well-furnished, plentiful market as 
the best of gardens, I am turning mine, in 
the midst of which my house stands, into 
grass plots and gravel walks, with trees and 
flowering shrubs. Cards we sometimes play 
here in long winter evenings ; but it is as 
they play at chess, — not for money, but for 
honor, or the pleasure of beating one another. 
This will not be quite a novelty to you, as 
you may remember we played together in 
that manner during the winter at Passy. I 
have indeed now and then a little compunc- 
tion in reflecting that I spend time so idly. 
But another reflection comes to relieve me, 



136 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

whispering : ' Yoit know that the soul is im- 
mortal. Why^ then^ should you he such 
a niggard of a little time, when you have 
a whole eternity before you f ' So, being 
easily convinced, and, like other reasonable 
creatures, satisfied with a small reason when 
it is in favor of doing what I have a mind 
to, I shuffle the cards again, and begin an- 
other game." Yet the old man could not 
but feel lonely at times in the new society 
growing up about him. He says patheti- 
cally in another letter : " I seem to have 
intruded myself into the company of pos- 
terity, when I ought to have been abed and 
asleep." 

In 1787 the constitutional convention 
met in Philadelphia, and it was a fitting 
thing that the statesman and philosopher 
should live to aid in framing laws by which 
his country is still governed. He was 
now too weak to stand long, so that his 
speeches on various questions had to be read 
out by a friend. His work in the conven- 
tion was altogether subordinate to that of 
Madison and one or two other leading spir- 



ENVOY TO FRANCE 137 

its ; but his part in reconciling various fac- 
tious elements in the convention was of the 
greatest importance. When at last the dead- 
lock came between the smaller and the larger 
States on the question of representation in 
the legislature, it was Franklin who saved 
the day by a suggestion which led to the 
famous compromise, making the Senate re- 
present the individual States, while the lower 
house is proportioned to population. Wash- 
ington presided over the assembly ; and we 
are told that while " the last members were 
signing, Dr. Franklin, looking towards the 
president's chair, at the back of which a 
rising sun happened to be painted, observed 
to a few members near him that painters 
had found it difficult to distinguish in their 
art a rising from a setting sun. ' I have,' 
said he, ' often and often in the course of 
the session and the vicissitudes of my hopes 
and fears as to its issue looked at that be- 
hind the president without being able to tell 
whether it was rising or setting ; but now at 
length I have the happiness to know that it 
is a rising, and not a setting sun.' " 



138 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

It was, however, the setting sun for Frank- 
lin. The few years that remained to him 
were peaceful and noble ; but his old mala- 
dies increased on him, until at the last he 
was confined to his bed. Yet through it all 
he showed the same untiring energy. He 
wrote against the study of the classics, against 
the abuse of the liberty of the press, and 
from his very deathbed sent out a stinging 
letter against slavery. The end was come : 
at eleven o'clock at night, April 17, 1790, 
he passed away. Philadelphia knew that 
she had lost her most distinguished citizen, 
and he was followed to the grave by a pro- 
cession including all that was honorable -in 
the city. 

In closing this brief Life of a great and 
good man we cannot do better than quote 
the words sent to him by America's greatest 
citizen ; " If to be venerated for benevolence, 
if to be admired for talent, if to be esteemed 
for patriotism, if to be beloved for philan- 
thropy, can gratify the human mind, you 
must have the pleasing consolation to know 
that you have not lived in vain. And I flat- 



ENVOY TO FRANCE 139 

ter myself that it will not be ranked among 
the least grateful occurrences of your life to be 
assured that so long as I retain my memory 
you will be recollected with respect, venera- 
tion, and affection by your sincere friend." 
To receive such praise from Washington is 
sufficient answer to all the petty cavils that 
have been raised against the memory of Ben- 
jamin Franklin. 



Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton &* Co. 
Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 



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